Abstract: System and methods are provided for more rapidly accessing data from a data container, such as a .ZIP archive, stored on a physical storage medium. Instead of requiring a processes desiring to access a file from the data container to read sequentially through the data container until the file is found, the data container has been modified to include an indication of the location on the physical memory where the desired file may be found. Consequently, the process for reading data from the data container may be advanced directly to the specified physical location without reading the intervening data.