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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.