In my articles on Daemon Tools and ISO Buster, I introduced freeware applications that let you create and manipulate *.ISO image files, or files that are exact CD/DVD replicas. In ISO Buster, you can rip *.ISO images. In Daemon Tools you can create virtual CD/DVD drives from those *.ISO images so that they act just like real disks inserted into the computer.
But, what about floppy disks? I am fully away that they are pretty decrepit. In fact, Apple Computers have long abandoned the archaic, slow, error-prone, and small-capacity 3 ½” disk. There are reasons why floppy disks (unfortunately) are still in use.
That being said, in this two part series I will be introducing programs that do the exact same thing as Daemon Tools and ISO Buster.
Diskcopy
In the same way that ISO Buster creates CD/DVD Image Files, Diskcopy creates Floppy Disk Image Files. However, the interface is not so user-friendly. Since floppy disks are now pretty primitive, it should come to no surprise that the interface for floppy disk image creation is pretty old. The interface is in command-line DOS. The following is the “man” (Linux-speak for manual) of diskcopy.exe.
DISKCOPY R2.04 Diskette copying utility
Copyright (C) 1990,1997 Caldera, Inc. All rights reserved.DISKCOPY [SOURCE] [DESTINATION] [/1][/A][/M]
SOURCE and DESTINATION may be a disk drive, or a disk image file
(only disk drives supporting removable media may be used)./1 copy only the first side of the disk
/A audible warning of disk change and copy complete
/M make multiple copies of a single disk or image file
/V verify that the disk is being copied correctlyExamples:
DISKCOPY A: A: /M
Make multiple copies of a disk using only drive A:
DISKCOPY B: C:\IMAGE\DISK1.IMG
Generate an image file from disk in drive B:
DISKCOPY C:\DISK2.IMG A:
Copy the image file C:\DISK2.IMG to disk drive A:
As you can see, it is pretty minimalist compared to many other manuals. Basically, to create a floppy disk image, input
“diskcopy a: filename.img”
Simple as that! Just change “filename” to the desired name you want to use. Next week, I’ll be discussing how to use these image files as virtual floppy disks. Stay tuned!
October 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Thank you but notwork in other file.If crate with this is ok but I try to extract from web site notwork. However Thank you very much.
January 17th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Great articles !!!
xD
February 14th, 2011 at 1:37 am
i installed everything wat u said me but in tftpd.32 is working properly, nothing is coming in the dhcp server wat i should do can u discripe me more abt this????
June 15th, 2011 at 11:58 am
Is there not any Diskcopy for 64bit system?
October 11th, 2013 at 7:43 am
Sweet blog! I found it while browsing on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo
News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to
get there! Thanks