Floppy disk image creation tools?

**blueshogun96** · February 27th, 2010, 03:04

Hey, I'm trying to find a tool to create floppy disk images (.img files) using files that are already on your PC. Why do I need that? I'm trying to work with VMachine right now and I want to get Win95 up and running on it. I was planning to make some really interesting updates to this emulator and until I can get Win95 working on this emulator, I can't do much.

While we're at it, I wanted to ask this as well. Sorry if this violates the rules in any way, but is it possible to download a windows 95 boot disk image in a .img file? That would help tremendously. Thanks.

For those who have never heard of VMachine, here's the author's site: http://www.paulsprojects.net/vmachine/vmachine.html

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Last edited by blueshogun96; February 27th, 2010 at 03:16..

Squall-Leonhart · February 27th, 2010, 03:10

winimage or something like that (can't remember)

its shareware though which sucks.... theres no decent freeware apps.

btw, you can use a bootable winme disk to install win98 or 95 iirc.

**blueshogun96** · February 27th, 2010, 04:55

Okay, this winimage tool is pretty good. To bad it shareware

Is it possible to make a bootable HDD image with this? That would probably solve my problems altogether.

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Squall-Leonhart · February 27th, 2010, 05:12

the app is supposed to be capable of that :\

ofc, that doesn't mean it is.

KrossX · February 27th, 2010, 05:59

Oh, WinImage. That was some nice program back then.

@blueshogun96: How about trying FreeDOS? It might be usable.
Installing Windows98 from FreeDOS

This is why I made bootable versions of those installation discs ages ago.

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Gareth1977 · February 27th, 2010, 13:51

I have a windows 98 SE boot disc img, if thats any good to you

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**blueshogun96** · February 27th, 2010, 21:28

Okay, I managed to get Win95 running on VMachine. What I had to do was copy the files from the Win95 disc onto a special folder in the emulated HDD image [C:\WIN95], then ran the setup from there. Works just fine as long as I don't install IE 4.0. Thanks alot.

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Squall-Leonhart · February 27th, 2010, 22:05

what virtual machine you using Blue?

Spyhop · February 27th, 2010, 22:16

You actually have a floppy drive in your computer still?
Just use a bootable thumb drive.

**blueshogun96** · February 28th, 2010, 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squall-Leonhart

what virtual machine you using Blue?

Sorry if the name got confusing

VMachine is the name of the actual emulator I'm playing around with. It lacks alot of features that most PC emulators have (i.e. CD-ROM/Iso, etc), but it's the simplest of open source PC emulators/virtual machines I could find and the source code is really easy to understand and well commented. I wrote an [incomplete] SST-1 emulation core a while ago but never actually used it. Realizing it was open source, I thought this would be a good opportunity to actually let some emulator use it. The only problem is that the author is using 3 different compilers to build it! Borland C for the custom BIOSes (which is understandable), GCC for certain functions used by the code emitter (probably would have been better to use inline assembly in Visual Studio or write that code in assembly), and Visual Studio for everything else. It's an interesting emulator, but the fact that it only emulates 16MB Ram max is a bit annoying (and I can easily change that 32 or 64).

I'm assuming you all know what SST-1 is, but just in case you (or anyone else reading this) don't know, I'll explain. The SST-1 is a 3Dfx Voodoo chipset. Since 3Dfx was generous enough to release the hardware/register level specs of their cards (but not after the Voodoo3), it was basically a golden opportunity. Afaik, no one has ever emulated a 3Dfx chipset (or any other 3D accelerator for that matter) on a PC emulator before, so I thought I'd be the first! SST-1 is the easiest video card to emulate that I can think of. Well documented, registers are very straight forward, extremely simple context switching (at least not nearly as complex as NVIDIA's or even the PS2's GS), small memory map, no BIOS, and if the VGA card is already emulated then you won't have to worry about writing a seperate VGA core for it because SST-1 requires a seperate VGA card to handle all that stuff anyway because the SST-1 didn't have it's own VGA controller! See? That makes it the perfect candidate for emulation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite aware that 3Dfx chipsets have been emulated before on MAME (and I haven't looked into glidos), but it's never been done on a full blown PC emulator before. Since VMachine already uses Direct3D, I can easily get the 3D rendering code up and running. We'll have to miss out on a few features (such as stipple patterns unless an OpenGL port is done), but I doubt it was really used.

So that's why I'm fooling around with that emulator in particular. I use VMware for more serious purposes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spyhop

You actually have a floppy drive in your computer still?
Just use a bootable thumb drive.

No, I don't have a floppy drive. I'm using a laptop (modern one) and I forgot what a floppy was until I started working with this project.

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Official Website of Shogun3D's RyuAwai!

Shogun3D Game Development Blog

Zengjük a Dalt: Manliest Song Ever!

phaedrus99 · March 4th, 2010, 09:17

Definitely, what you probably want for floppy drive / image creation & emulation is a program called "Virtual Floppy Drive". It emulates up to two floppy drives on your system, either as physical files or in ram, lets you mount, create, populate, and save image files of any standard floppy size, and can be installed either temporarily or statically on your system through reboots. Also, it can be run portably from a pen drive, and features shell integration if desired.

Find it here : Virtual Floppy Drive | Portable USB Pen Drive Applications

Or on the project's homepage : VM Back

I've used it several times for creating & using floppy images for other virtual computing needs such as that which you describe. It's not needed often, but is VERY useful at those rare times.

February 27th, 2010, 03:04	#1
blueshogun96 Last Xbox Emu Author Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Seattle, WA, USA Posts: 5,843	Floppy disk image creation tools? Hey, I'm trying to find a tool to create floppy disk images (.img files) using files that are already on your PC. Why do I need that? I'm trying to work with VMachine right now and I want to get Win95 up and running on it. I was planning to make some really interesting updates to this emulator and until I can get Win95 working on this emulator, I can't do much. While we're at it, I wanted to ask this as well. Sorry if this violates the rules in any way, but is it possible to download a windows 95 boot disk image in a .img file? That would help tremendously. Thanks. For those who have never heard of VMachine, here's the author's site: http://www.paulsprojects.net/vmachine/vmachine.html __________________ Official Website of Shogun3D's RyuAwai! Shogun3D Game Development Blog Zengjük a Dalt: Manliest Song Ever! Last edited by blueshogun96; February 27th, 2010 at 03:16..

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February 27th, 2010, 03:10	#2
Squall-Leonhart Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 23,270	winimage or something like that (can't remember) its shareware though which sucks.... theres no decent freeware apps. btw, you can use a bootable winme disk to install win98 or 95 iirc.

February 27th, 2010, 04:55	#3
blueshogun96 Last Xbox Emu Author Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Seattle, WA, USA Posts: 5,843	Okay, this winimage tool is pretty good. To bad it shareware Is it possible to make a bootable HDD image with this? That would probably solve my problems altogether. __________________ Official Website of Shogun3D's RyuAwai! Shogun3D Game Development Blog Zengjük a Dalt: Manliest Song Ever!

February 27th, 2010, 05:12	#4
Squall-Leonhart Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 23,270	the app is supposed to be capable of that :\ ofc, that doesn't mean it is.

February 27th, 2010, 05:59	#5
KrossX クロッスエクス Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Argentina Posts: 3,636	Oh, WinImage. That was some nice program back then. @blueshogun96: How about trying FreeDOS? It might be usable. Installing Windows98 from FreeDOS This is why I made bootable versions of those installation discs ages ago. __________________

February 27th, 2010, 21:28	#7
blueshogun96 Last Xbox Emu Author Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Seattle, WA, USA Posts: 5,843	Okay, I managed to get Win95 running on VMachine. What I had to do was copy the files from the Win95 disc onto a special folder in the emulated HDD image [C:\WIN95], then ran the setup from there. Works just fine as long as I don't install IE 4.0. Thanks alot. __________________ Official Website of Shogun3D's RyuAwai! Shogun3D Game Development Blog Zengjük a Dalt: Manliest Song Ever!

February 27th, 2010, 22:05	#8
Squall-Leonhart Banned Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 23,270	what virtual machine you using Blue?

February 27th, 2010, 22:16	#9
Spyhop Banned Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: SPAAACCCCE Posts: 7,343	You actually have a floppy drive in your computer still? Just use a bootable thumb drive.

March 4th, 2010, 09:17	#11
phaedrus99 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: oregon Posts: 1	Definitely, what you probably want for floppy drive / image creation & emulation is a program called "Virtual Floppy Drive". It emulates up to two floppy drives on your system, either as physical files or in ram, lets you mount, create, populate, and save image files of any standard floppy size, and can be installed either temporarily or statically on your system through reboots. Also, it can be run portably from a pen drive, and features shell integration if desired. Find it here : Virtual Floppy Drive \| Portable USB Pen Drive Applications Or on the project's homepage : VM Back I've used it several times for creating & using floppy images for other virtual computing needs such as that which you describe. It's not needed often, but is VERY useful at those rare times.