How can we resume a download even if the link cannot be resumed?

Question

When am downloading any link that's cannot be resumed, if my Internet connection gets disconnected then download link stops working.

What can I do to resume the download from the link?

Answer 1

I used to use getright, but that was in the dial-up days. It supports resuming downloads.

What you're looking for is called a download manager. Some servers just don't support resuming downloads if I remember correctly; however, some of the newer download managers may have found a way around this by now.

Answer 2

If the remote host really doesn’t support resume, then there’s not much you can do. However, what you can at least try is to use WGET. There are plenty of Windows builds (here’s one).

1. (Make a backup copy of the incomplete file)
2. Open a command-prompt (Win+R -> cmd.exe -> OK)
3. Drag-and-drop WGET.EXE to the command-prompt window
4. Type -c (spaces before)
5. Type -O (space before)
6. Drag-and-drop the incomplete file to the command-prompt window
7. Copy the URL to the file to the clipboard
8. Click the command-prompt window and press Space, Alt+Space, E, P, Enter

You should now be running WGET with a command line such as

> C:\Users\Bob\Desktop\wget.exe -c -O "C:\Users\Bob\Desktop\cool file.zip" "http://foobar.org/cool file.zip"`

If it is possible to resume, it will do so; if not, then it will download from scratch, but will probably do so with less chance of failing.

Answer 3

There is no documented feature of this in IE8. If this is a requirement, I would recommend to use another browser such as Mozilla Firefox and add one of the many add-ons such as Download Statusbar.

Though one article on the interweb claims that it is a hidden feature though I have not been able to proove it.