Difference in .rar and .P01?

[de8212]

Haven't messed with vcd's, etc in a long time. When I download a file, it has both .rar and .P01 files. Do I need both?
What do I do when they are finished to get them ready for burning to vcd?

Thanks and sorry for the newbie questions.

de

[wot_fan]

de8212,

Rar files are archive files. IOW, they are the files which make up what you are downloading. You need a program like winrar to decompress the the vcd files out of the rar files. Rar files are like Zip files if you are familiar with them. Rars make it easy to break up large files into smaller parts that are easier to upload and download.

Par files are parity files. Their purpose is either fix any rar files that have been corrupted during posting/downloading or to fill any "holes" in the rar set. Sometimes not all the rar parts make it to your news server and the pars are posted so the poster doesn't have to post fills. For pars I use FSRaid.

Hope this helps,
wot_fan