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Submit to SlashdotIn the previous article of this two-part series, I revealed how to create floppy disk image file from Diskcopy.exe. I was trying to find tools similar to IsoBuster and Daemon Tools - which are used for CD Imaging and Virtualization - that dealt with floppy disk images. As I mentioned in that article, for us PC users, floppy disk and their corresponding tools are necessary since we still haven’t made the complete switch to CDs and USB/Firewire portable drives (unlike our lucky Mac counterparts:)).
Diskcopying from Image to Floppy Drive
After using Diskcopy to make exact image replicas of important floppy disks, what’s a guy supposed to do with them? I use them if I ever have to make physical copies of say startup disks, disk utilities, anti-virus utilities, and operating systems. Normally, if you always recreate the floppy disk using the built-in programs, take for example the Windows startup disk creation utility, it takes ages. But, if you have an image file saved on your computer, all you have to do is run Diskcopy and it will take seconds!
diskcopy filename.img a:
It’s simple as inputting the above text in the command line and replacing “filename” with the actual filename of the desired image file.
Virtual Floppy Drive
Like CDs, its a pain to keep floppy disks. So, I archive all of my important ones with the Diskcopy utility (see previous article). Whenever I need to access the data inside, I don’t need to write it on a floppy disk using the above method and then read it. I can just create a virtual floppy drive so that I can read and write to it just as it was a normal floppy disk! The same basic functionality in Daemon Tools is in Virtual Floppy Drive. The only difference is that you can write to the virtual floppy drive! VFD even supports most all floppy disk variations like 3 1/2, 5 1/4, 2.88 MB, 720 KB, etc!
Usage is simple. It doesn’t even require an installer (Some may consider that a good or bad thing. Personally, I despise installers.).
Just open the program and start the driver.
You have two virtual drive slots available. Assign the desired drive letter (commonly “B:”) to one of them.
Then open the *.img file.
Presto! You can read, write, drag, and drop to the virtual floppy drive!
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
i want a program that emulates the virtual drive of verious sizes ( may be veriable ) . as it must run on verios plateforms like dos ( required ) , w98, wme , wnt , linux , unix etc.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:05 am
i want a program that emulates the virtual drive of verious sizes ( may be veriable ) . as it must run on verios plateforms like dos ( required ) , w98, wme , wnt , linux , unix e
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 am
You know, I really do not know. I did a quick search and came up with nothing. Why not just use a Flash drive. Most operating systems will accept (read/write) to it natively.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:27 am
thanks
July 17th, 2007 at 5:38 am
intersting of nnew sofftwares
October 29th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
thanks, just what I needed - now i can make bootable floppies as images (i don’t have a physical floppy) with various tools requiring to write to floppy, so later i can boot them with GRUB from an usb drive !
November 12th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Thankyou this programs great =) as i dont have a physical floppy on my “new” laptop lol.
Oh and it works well on windows vista Home Premium 32-Bit as far as i can see.. Though i had to run it in admin mode.
Windows Explorer recognizes it as a floppy drive (I saw your bugs list said it didn’t on XP)
December 7th, 2007 at 12:34 am
blogger Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 am
You know, I really do not know. I did a quick search and came up with nothing. Why not just use a Flash drive. Most operating systems will accept (read/write) to it natively.
To answer your question I have an old program on floppy that only installs from a floppy drive.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Thanks, in addition is it possible to create multiple virtual floppy disk drives, because i need at least two as iam partitioning and installing multiple OS and virtual OS are not an option.
Cheers
March 22nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Great software! Keep on the good work.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:49 am
ok
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 am
Thanks … this is very helpful utility … perfect work.
September 17th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Hi,
I am a new user to use this vfd.
I got the error message - “fail to start the vfd driver. The system cannot find the path specified.”
Do I have to change any thing on BISO and so on?
Could you please advise if any inputs
November 5th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Thanks … this is very helpful utility
November 7th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Thanks a lot … Working nicely, it helped a lot.
January 24th, 2009 at 6:01 am
thanks ; this is very very helpful utility
January 24th, 2009 at 6:05 am
thanks, this is very very helpful utility
January 24th, 2009 at 6:06 am
thanks
March 5th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Hi
I would like to use vfd, but
Failed to install the VFD driver.
Access is denied.
error appeared. I’ve got Vista.
Can you help me?
March 17th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Hey Kevlar, I don’t know if anyone has answered your question, but for anyone having problems installing the Virtual Floppy Drivers, this is how you fix it:
right click on vfd.exe (haven’t tried it with vfdwin.exe yet) and click run as administrator. click Allow when the popup box comes up and you’re all set.
-Devan
April 20th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Installed on 32-bit srver and it worked great! Also downloaded 64-bit driver by \
April 20th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Installed on 32-bit srver and it worked great! Also downloaded 64-bit driver by “Critical0″, but neither vfd.exe or vfdwin.exe will run on 64-bit. Does anyone have a 64-bit version of these
June 21st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Installed on 32 bit - worked great! Thanks m8!
July 30th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Thanks, It helped to make bootable flash drive
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
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September 3rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
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September 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Dear Evan, thanks for the tip, I also had the error in Vista of Failed to install the VFD driver.
Access is denied. running as administrator fix it.
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:35 am
is good but it doesn’t work for 64 bits
December 13th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Dear Sir,
I need make virtual floppy drive in my laptop which is opearting with Windows vista premium.This is i need to install Allen bradly Software .Please help me .
February 16th, 2010 at 2:29 am
This is a great tool!
I’m using it for batch automation from C# code, and it works like a charm. That is, until Gates & co created Windows 7. WHY?!?!
Anyone who knows how to use this tool (VFD) or any other virtual floppy tool with a command line interface in windows 7? Suggestions?
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
It does work in windows 7 64.. hit f8 and disable signing of drivers. then run the program as admin.. ofcourse get the 64 version of vfd.sys
March 17th, 2010 at 5:43 am
I can’t quite tell if this is what I need. I’ve done quite a bit of searching and can’t quite figure out what to do. I wonder if you can briefly tell me if I’m on the right track?
I’m trying to install Windows 2000 onto a Parallels (virtual) computer on an iMac. The Windows 2000 installation starts with 4 bootable floppy diskettes (or at least the first one is bootable, then it continues to the others) before continuing to the installation CD. But the iMac doesn’t have a floppy drive to get started on.
So I’m trying to create a virtual floppy drive, put images of the four floppy diskettes into it, and put it onto a CD. I’m hoping that then, when I try to install the system on Parallels in the iMac, it will recognize the bootable virtual floppy on the CD and get started from that. (Because, in Parallels, the iMac has no system to start with whatever.)
I’ve found programs for creating .img files but I don’t understand how to get them to make an image file from the bootable diskette. I found your programs but don’t really understand how they work for this purpose.
Sorry, I’m not very experienced at all this. Thanks for any suggestions!
April 15th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
I’m trying to get this to work in a 64 bit version of vista and I get the error message saying it does not run in ME and windows 98. How do I disable the signing of drivers on vista?
May 11th, 2010 at 3:09 am
Thanks, very good … this is very helpful utility
July 30th, 2010 at 9:27 am
@Joe April 15th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
I get this msg in Windows 7 64 bit too.
The same message is given for any and all runs which fail the VfdIsValidPlatform test, regardless of windows version.
For Windows 7 64 the program refuses to run because the IsWow64Process function returns TRUE.
So, i can’t undestand how Tong’s advice could help.
Tong Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
“It does work in windows 7 64.. hit f8 and disable signing of drivers…”