Redhat+Fedora, disappearing psa files + Help Needed with TAR extracting in Windows

[Thomas899]

I have Redhat Linux with Fedora Core on my (rented) server. I can reach the server remotely, via putty. I have two big problems now. I would be most grateful for any help.

1. I have TAR 1.14. No matter if I try the --version switches or the --portability switch, I ALWAYS run into the following problem:
On my server the archived file can be extracted or viewed probably, in midnight commander too. BUT: I want to extract the file on my home PC where I have WinXP. I download the TAR file via FTP, and I tried a lot of archivers, even TAR for windows, to open/extract the TAR file I made on my server, but it ALWAYS displays ONE file of the archive, together with its path etc. but always one file, and IGNORES all other parts (all subdirs and all files in them) of the archive. So I can extract one file even if the archive has 1000+ files in it, because it thinks it contains only one file. Sometimes I get an unexpected end of archive error message. As I said, everything is fine if I extract it on the server, with TAR 1.14...


2. Why do I need to make TARs from my files? Because I have to backup all my data because the operation system must be reinstalled in it because the server is running in Recovery mode at the moment because it went down, and it did not want to run in normal mode again. I was told that files of PSA (Plesk) are missing, and that is why Normal mode does not work. I dont understand how files can disappear from one moment to another... is it possible due to some misconfiguration? or hack?

Thank you in advance, quick help would be very good as I am concerned about all this

[prosen]

what about other archive formats, like say zip, rar or ace ?? they are compatible with linux too .. no problem abt tht .. and abt your tar on winxp .. have you tried using WinRAR to open/extract these tarballs ?? WinRAR shud be gud enuf ... my tarballs with tar 1.15 works fine with WinRAR ..
also can u post a sample command (full with filename .. etc.) when u make the tarball ?? I wud like to see wht other options u may be giving (or not) ....

[Thomas899]

If I have a folder called Files for example, I type: tar -vcf files.tar Files. It compresses all files including the folder name into an archive, which it can extract properly on my server, and I can also view the contents of the archive in Midnight Commander.
Yes, I tried to open it in WinRAR too, but it displays only one file from the archive, and it cannot extract or view it, it says error.
However, if I download anything in .tar.gz from the net, winrar displays it properly. But I do not know what I am doing wrong.

[prosen]

hmm .. I find no fault in ur commands .. I think u better reinstall the tar package .. ie., 1st uninstall it and then install it .. or better still .. upgrade it to v1.15 ... as of now .. I can suggest no other alternative ..