What is a RIFF file and how do I extract it?

[LazyLion]

I have nineteen archives numbered from 001 to 019. I know there is an AVI file inside. RAR cannot open them says "damaged or unknown". When I open the first one with a text viewer it starts off with type RIFF. What is that? Anyone know how to open it?

 

[bwana]

I've come across some similarly suffixed archives before - You could try Master Splitter - http://www.tomasoft.com/

EDIT - though it may not work for RIFF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Interchange_File_Format

 

[qinglung]

Sounds like the file is not compressed or archived then, look for an app that joins the pieces together, or do it using the command prompt:

copy /b part.001 + part.002 + part.003 part.avi

 

[detritus]

I'm guessing its an avi that has been split into chunks, but not rar'ed or placed into an archive. Try using something like HJSplit to join them up again.

 

[LazyLion]

ok, thanks guys!

 

[Gnome]

I'm guessing its an avi that has been split into chunks, but not rar'ed or placed into an archive. Try using something like HJSplit to join them up again.

Actually it's probably uncompressed (WAV) audio file split into pieces. RIFF used to be used in the Windows 95 days.

Instead of downloading a program just use the command qinglung posted, this should work without you needing to change it:

copy /b *.0?? final.riff

 

[qinglung]

Actually it's probably uncompressed (WAV) audio file split into pieces. RIFF used to be used in the Windows 95 days.

It's not necessarily a WAV file, open some .avi files in a hex editor and look at the first few characters. As example, from a recent .avi file I got the first characters are "RIFFöp..AVI LIST¬ÿ..hdrlavih8".

The Wikipedia page that bwana posted shows that it has more to do with the metadata that is included in the file, it is not limited to a specific file type though.

The Microsoft implementation is mostly known through file formats like AVI, ANI and WAV, which use the RIFF meta-format as their basis.

 

[LazyLion]

The HJSplit program joined the first few of them together, but the file was still unplayable. I just deleted the entire download and will try a different file. I dunno why some people upload crap stuff that have no instructions and in weird formats. Thanks anyway guys.