i'm not really unerstanding whats going on with the archiving issue, surely if you unarchive from a file on disk to a directory on disk, or the otherway round, you shouldn't have a problem as it should only use the memory it needs, rather than having to load the whole archive into ram?
i'm with you with the hard disk problem though.
i've got a 40Gb drive in my A4000, 3.1 roms, installed 3.1, upgraded to 3.5, found my 3.9CD, upgraded to 3.9, boing bagged it with both 1 and 2. and i'm still only seeing 8Gb of the disk.
at the moment configured partitions with 1Gb system disk, 1Gb mac partition, 2Gb apps, 4Gb data...
fix disk size tells me the drive geometry is confugured properly, and i'm running SFS not FFS ... so a little puzzeled.
one of my A1200's is the same. i have had it working fine before, as i've had it's 60Gb drive setup with 1Gb system, 1Gb mac, 2Gb temp, 25Gb apps, 25Gb data. but after geting annoyed with the warpOS/warp3D issues, blew the whole lot away and started again, i can't get more than 8Gb. and fixdisksize tells me its fine...? again, 3.1 install, 3.5 upgrade, 3.9 upgrade, not been boingbagged yet...