© 1993-2002 Gilles Vollant
Part © Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler (ZLib)
Part © Christoph H. Hochstätter
Partly © François Liger
Partially © Microsoft™

www.winimage.com

Documentation translated into English by Joll Demay, Michael Segall, Peter Sohn, Matthew Gardiner and John Buettner.
Documentation translated into German by Walter Scheffel.
Spanish translation by Diana M. Galindo P. and Amando Senra.
Italian version translated by Roberto Paterlini.
The translation of the Portuguese version was done with the help of Nuno Dionísio and Vítor Bueno.
Brazilian version translated by Marcello Elston.
Dutch version translated by Geldof Georges and Pyra Lucien.
Translation of the Russian version of the program and quick (sorry!) editing of the help was done by Dmitry Erokhin.
The translation of the help (and, it seems, with the help of an automatic translator and almost without further editing) was carried out by Vilis Eglitis.
Help converted to HTML format

WinImage 6.10 is fully Year 2000 compatible.

Working in the Global Network assumes that the user has certain knowledge regarding not only the features of the personal equipment used software but also safety rules. It is not uncommon for users to neglect installation antivirus programs, which causes system blocking and loss of important information. As practice shows, attempts to cope with the problem on their own do not desired result. In this case unlock windows will help professionals with many years of experience.

It should also be noted that the safety of information is always in the hands of the user himself. So, you can save a disk image in advance, so that you can then painlessly restore lost data.

- ASP Member -

WinImage is a shareware program. Its author is a member of the ASP. You may copy and distribute WinImage provided that no fee is charged for doing so. It is allowed to charge only a small amount for the cost of diskettes and delivery. WimImage must be distributed in its entirety and include all copyrighted files.

Extract files There are three ways: using the "Image" menu or the toolbar icon, by double-clicking on the file, or by dragging and dropping it into another application.

WinImage allows you to drag and drop an image file from WinImage into another application. Press and hold the left mouse button while moving the pointer to another application (drag and drop client) and then release. In this way, you can add an image to ZIP or ARJ archives if you are using the WinZip utility, or attach an image to a message Email created with Microsoft™ MS-Mail, Lotus™ Notes, or ccMail.

You can run WinImage with the following options
"WINIMAGE [source [destination] [options]]"
"WINIMAGE file.ima" : Load file file.ima
"WINIMAGE file.ima A:" : Load file.ima, write to drive A: and exit
"WINIMAGE A: file.ima" : Load from floppy in drive A: and save file.ima
"WINIMAGE /MAKESFX imagefilename.??z imagesfx.exe<опция команды>: Create file using .wlz or .imz file and here<опция команды>-- is the standard option for an SFX file.

Options:
/F: Format when writing to floppy from command line
/E: Extract (second parameter can be destination)
/X: Extract with subdirectories (second parameter can be destination)
/Q: Always exit after command line operation
/H: Hide the main WinImage window
/NX: Do not exit after operation from the command line
/Nxxx: Create a new image (where xxx is DMF1024, DMF2048, 144, 120...)
/Txxx: Convert image size (where xxx is DMF1024, DMF2048, 144, 120...)
/I xxx: Insert file or directory xxx
/NOASPI: Disable ASPI device checking at startup (this disables the CD imaging option under Windows 95/98/Me)

The "Disk" tab in the program settings under Windows 95/98 has the following options:

If both options are selected Use DMF formatting technology and Use DMF technology to write data, WinImage will use the new 3.0 DMF formatting code as standard.
- If both options are not selected and Use new technology DMF for writing data, WinImage will use a slightly revised version of the 2.5 DMF formatting code.
- If no option is selected Use the new DMF formatting technology, WinImage uses the same formatting code as version 2.20.

Some DMF Related Issues can be corrected by adjusting the disc clearance. To change the settings, you must change the registry. Be careful! To do this, you need to change the value of the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinImage\iGap\Dmf. The value "0" indicates the standard DMF clearance. For WinImage users, the 2.88 drive needs to be set to "17".

Please report any issues related to gap change (GAP).

close image

Closes the current image.

Seal
Set up printer

These options are only available in . They allow you to print the directory of the current image.

Delete a file

Removes files from the current image after asking for confirmation.
If no file is selected, WinImage removes all files from the image by default. Otherwise, only the selected files are deleted.

File Properties

Change the file date (only in the professional version), attributes and name. You can only rename a file if a single file is selected.

Change Label

Change the volume label of the current image.

Properties boot sector

To edit boot sector properties you need . With this option, you can change the drive's OEM string, serial number, or select the boot sector Windows systems NT, MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 95/98 or WinImage (Reset button). When you select a WinImage boot sector, you can enter the text displayed when the floppy is loaded.

Change Format

Change the size of the current image.
The new size must be greater than the total size of the files in the image.
For example: a 1.44 MB image can only be changed to a 360 KB image if the size of all files it contains does not exceed 360 KB.

Defrag the current image

Defragment current image files.

Image Information

Display information about the current image and the ability to edit a comment to the image.

Disk formatting

Formatting an empty floppy.

Create an ISO image of a CD

Creation and discovery ISO image file from a CD drive.

Compare disk to image

Comparison of the current image with the disk.

Burn image to disk

Write the current image to disk.

Format the disk and burn the image

Formatting a floppy disk and writing the current image to it.

In the Windows 95/98 environment, the following options are available:

- UseIOCTL: Tells WinImage to use 32-bit IOCTL operations (excluding DMF formatting, which is not affected by this selection). Enabled by default.

- Use DMF technology: if this option is not selected, WinImage formats the DMF in the same way as in version 2.20. If the option is selected, the new format code is used.

- Quick format 1.44 MB before DMF: If this option is not selected, WinImage performs a 1.44 MB quick format before formatting to DMF. It is sometimes difficult to format a blank floppy in DMF without first formatting it as 1.44 MB.
For more information on DMF see .

Image Tab

- Choosing a floppy disk format for the image: If this option is enabled, WinImage selects the floppy type that matches the image in memory. (If you are loading a 360 KB image, WinImage chooses the 5.25" floppy disk format).
- Cut off the used part of the image: If this option is selected, WinImage reduces the image size when writing to an image file that is not full.
- Incrementing filenames on open/save: If this option is selected, WinImage increments filenames by 1. For example, after opening (or saving) "DISK01.IMA", WinImage suggests the next disk name as "DISK02.IMA".
- Check disk contents before writing an image to it: If this option is selected, WinImage will ask you to confirm writing to a disk that already contains data.
- Allow files in CD image to be updated (same file name and size): If this option is enabled, WinImage allows updating files in CD images, provided that their new versions have the same names and sizes as those in the image.
- Compression: Select the compression level when saving a compressed image file.

Extract tab

- Path for extractable files: Here you specify where to extract files from the image.

The following options determine the extraction of subdirectories.
- Skip subfolders: When this option is selected, WinImage will not extract the subdirectory(s).
- Extract all files to one folder: WinImage will extract all files to the image subdirectory of the target path.
- Extract files with full paths: WinImage extracts files from an image subdirectory to a subdirectory of the target path.

The next three options control the display of a confirmation dialog when extracting files.
- Confirm overwrite on checkout: If this option is selected, WinImage will ask you to confirm the write before starting the operation, if there is a risk that the file will be overwritten.

File Tab

The first two options enable/disable the appearance of a dialog box when inserting files. The third option asks for confirmation when replacing files.
- Confirm file deletion: This option controls whether a confirmation dialog is shown when deleting files in an image.

Notification tab

Choice of sound and message
With this option, you can set WinImage to play sound from a .WAV or .MID file. In Windows 95/98 and NT environments, .AVI files can also be used.

General tab

- Standard Viewer: Specifies the viewer application to connect when double-clicking on a file without an association.
- Use new item to view folders: Select the control to use when searching for a directory.
- Allow drag and drop to File Explorer: Allows the user to retrieve files by dragging them from the WinImage window to Explorer (and to the Desktop).
- Show taskbar icon while running: When WinImage is running in floppy or batch mode, it displays an icon in the Win9x/NT taskbar. When user input is required, the icon flickers.
- Automatically show a WinImage window when user interaction is required: When user intervention is needed (disk change, error, etc.), the WinImage window automatically pops up on top of other windows. This option allows you to minimize the WinImage window during long operations (floppy...) and don't forget about it!
- Options for registered users: cm. .

Free floppy drive emulator for modern computers that do not have connectors for connecting this device.

background

I'll start with a real case. At this time, I work part-time in one organization as something like a system administrator.

Recently, two new computers were bought for the accounting department, since the old ones could no longer cope with the requirements of more and more new programs for reports to all sorts of ministries. System and all desired programs installed without problems, so I connected both "computers" to the Internet and with the words: "Use it to your health!", I went home with a clear conscience :). But it was not there:))).

Literally a couple of hours later they called me back and said that, they say, this way and that, but they can’t transfer some kind of payment. When I arrived, it turned out that the new computers DO NOT have FLOPPI DRIVES!!!, and without them, the cunning ministerial program does not want to issue a payment document file in any way :).

Naturally, I immediately tried to get the necessary file, bypassing the requirements, but the utility completely refused to issue it except on a floppy disk. Without hesitation, I decided to rearrange the drives from old machines to new ones, but when I opened the case of one of the new computers, it turned out that there was nowhere to connect floppy drives, since motherboard there was no connector for FDD :(.

I was already generally upset, but a removable floppy drive, which I saw from a friend, popped up in my memory in time. It was this device that was asked for at the time of the report.

But the situation was saved only for a while, so I was instructed to buy the same portable FDD for accounting. And everything would be fine, but it turned out that this is a very scarce piece of goods, which not even all computer stores have heard of :).

In short, when I got home, I decided to search the Internet for alternative solutions to the problem that had arisen, and after a long unsuccessful search, it finally dawned on me that there might be a software flopik emulator!

The search resulted in a small Virtual Floppy Drive utility. With a weight of less than 200 kilobytes, the program can create up to two full-fledged virtual drives for floppy disks of different capacities and form factors.

Main features of Virtual Floppy Drive:

• full integration of the virtual disk drive with Windows (up to Vista);
• the ability to create virtual "floppies" with data;
• the ability to quickly change virtual "floppies";
• support for 3.5" and 5.25" form factors;
• support for the capacity of virtual "floppies" from 160 KB to 2.88 MB;
• the ability to format virtual "floppies";
• the presence of a console version of the utility.

Program launch

Virtual Floppy Drive does not require installation, so we download the archive, unpack it into any convenient folder and we can start using the program. In the unpacked folder you will find two executable files: vfd.exe and vfdwin.exe.

The first one launches the console version of the emulator, so we will not consider it (if necessary, you can read about managing this version in the file vfdhelp.txt), but the second one is just what we need. Running vfdwin.exe You will see the Virtual Floppy Drive program window:

Interface and launch of Virtual Floppy Drive:

This window has six tabs, but the Drivers tab opens by default. This is where we should start our work. Here we need to install the virtual drive driver and run it. The driver itself is usually detected automatically in the "Driver File" window. If this did not happen (the window remains empty), click the "Browse" button, find the file in the folder with the program vfd.sys and specify it as a driver.

The next step is to select the type of program launch. Manual (“Manual”) and automatic (“Auto”) launch of the application along with the system are available. If you constantly need to work with a floppy, then I recommend choosing the “Auto” mode. Confirm your choice by pressing the "Apply" button.

When everything is configured, press the "Install" button to install the Virtual Floppy Drive service, and then "Start" to start the emulator (if you press "Start" right away, the service will still be installed;)). If you wish, you can always disable the virtual drive by clicking "Stop" and remove the program service with the "Uninstall" button.

The service is running, the emulator is running, but no changes seem to be happening - why? Because now it's the turn to configure the virtual drive itself. To do this, go to the "Drive0" or "Drive1" tab and perform some manipulations. Namely, click the "Change" button at the very top and in the window that appears, indicate the letter (preferably A or B) for our virtual drive.

Now, after confirming the selection in the My Computer folder, you will find a new floppy drive with the letter just given:

If you double-click on a new virtual drive, it, like a real one, will ask you to insert a floppy disk, but where can I get it ... The next step has come - creating an image of a floppy disk.

Create a virtual disk

Click the "Open" button in the drive control window and in the window that opens, set the type and capacity of our virtual "floppy disk". Let's leave the "Image File" field empty for now, and in the "Disk Type" section, it must be "RAM" (that is, we create the first "floppy disk" in virtual memory your PC):

Click the "Create" button and look at the changes in the drive management window:

We have three new buttons activated: "Save", which allows you to save the virtual image of the "floppy" to a file, "Close" to "extract" the image and "Format" to format the virtual "floppy" in the FAT system. By the way, you can format a floppy disk image using standard means Windows: via the floppy drive context menu or via the appropriate console command.

Now, if you try to open the created drive, an empty window will open in front of you, into which you can move files up to 1.4 megabytes in size.

Virtual floppy drive settings

Let's leave the drive management tab for a while and look at those that have so far been left unattended. The first one is Association. It allows you to associate a Virtual Floppy Drive with files of a certain type as virtual "floppies" (although not required). Here you can choose from existing types or even create your own by clicking the "New Extension" button:

Another option is the Shell tab. With its help, we can add new entries to the context windows menu, as well as create shortcuts for disk drives on the desktop. The first option is needed only for old Windows versions, since, starting from XP, entries for sending files to a new drive and others are created automatically, so you can also leave nothing here (unless you need shortcuts):

Working with a virtual drive

Now in practice we will work with a virtual floppy drive. You can open the floppy image and try dragging it to open window any small file. Happened? Congratulations! So, support for the Drag & Drop function works for you. If the file did not copy, return to the "Shell" tab and check the first item.

The following test will allow us to check if the drive can be accessed through the context menu. Let's select a small file and, by calling the "Send" item in the context menu, we will activate the item with the name of our "flopic". If the file was not copied or there is no corresponding entry in the menu, you again need to activate the above item in the settings:

If everything went well, then by opening the “floppy disk” you will find on it the file that you copied:

Now you can do everything except saving and changing virtual "floppies". But before saving, we need an empty file that will be used as an image. Creating it is not particularly difficult. Let's go to the folder where our "floppies" will be stored and create any file (context menu - "Create" item).

Now let's just change the file extension to one of those listed in the "Association" tab (if the extension is not displayed for you, go to the "Tools" menu of any folder, select the "Folder Options" item, in the window that opens, go to the "View" tab and deactivate the item "Hide extensions for known file types"). Everything - the future image is ready:

Now we return to the drive management tab (first) and click the "Save ..." button. In the window that opens, specify the newly created image file, check the item "Overwrite an existing file" and click "Save":

Our virtual floppy is now saved, the files from it will not go anywhere, and they can be read at any time.

The last thing you need to work is to be able to change "floppies". As I said above, to “take it out” it is enough to press the “Close” button, after which only the “Open” button will light up again. We press it and in the window already familiar to us, we now select the saved image of the desired “floppy” using the “Browse ...” button. Next, specify the "Disk Type" "File" and click "Open".

Congratulations! "Diskette" loaded successfully!

conclusions

Of course, Virtual Floppy Drive emulates a floppy drive only at the software level, so working with it outside the Windows environment (for example, booting from it into the BIOS) will not work :(.

However, if you encounter a problem similar to mine, when a floppy is required for the successful operation of specific applications, then with the help of this small utility you will save about 200 hryvnias (about 800 rubles) on the purchase of an external USB-FDD !!! Good luck in all your endeavors and let your computers bring you less trouble;).

P.S. It is allowed to freely copy and quote this article, provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.

P.P.S. In Windows, you can emulate not only floppy drives, but even create full-fledged copies of real CD / DVD drives. If you need this, I advise you to pay attention to one of the most popular utilities of this kind:

P.P.P.S. If you already have a physical floppy drive and you decide to install this program, be prepared for the fact that your physical drive will disappear from the list of logical drives. This happens if you assign the letter of an existing drive to a virtual drive. That is, the real disk is replaced with a virtual one, and the real one disappears.

The following actions will help correct the situation:
1. Remove from the hardware manager:
a) floppy disk drive
b) Floppy disk controller.
2. Remove the branch from the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\ACPI\PNP0700\4&1e2bbe8d&0
3. Reboot.

It may seem surprising to some, but many organizations still use floppy disks. We have several programs installed in our accounting department, which require electronic digital signatures (EDS). These EDSs are located on diskettes. But, since floppy disks are a rather unreliable medium (it can fail at any time), you have to make backup copies of them.

For this purpose I use the program . With it, you can make a copy of a floppy disk (image), and then, if necessary, write a new floppy disk from this image.

You can download. Run the downloaded file Floppy Image.exe - the program window will open. The upper part is for creating a copy of the floppy, and the lower part is for writing a new floppy from the saved copy.

So, insert a floppy disk with an EDS key into your computer - click on top of the window button " Browse”(1).
Next, select the folder where the floppy image will be saved - write any Name and click "Save". Then press the button Start”(2) in the main window of the program and wait for the end of the process of writing data from the floppy disk to a file. That's all!

Now, if your key floppy suddenly fails, you will need to insert a blank floppy disk into the floppy drive and run the program again. Then click on the bottom of the window program button " Browse”(3).
Find the floppy image file on your computer - select it and click "Open". Then press the button Start"(four). A window will appear warning about overwriting all data on the media - click "Yes".
Wait for the data to be written to the floppy disk.
Then close the program. Now the floppy disk can be used as a key disk.

WinImage Floppy Imaging Program

If you read the article on my website "Virtual Disk Drive", then you probably noticed that there is also a question about the winimage program. This program is designed to create floppy disk images, or it can be used in conjunction with a virtual disk drive. You can download it for example Installing it is not difficult, everything is as usual: download, install, enjoy. There is also a Russifier in the kit. So the program interface can be made Russian. It looks like this:

I don't see the point in completely disassembling the program. The program is designed to create media images and restore to blank media from these images. This is relevant in the case when simply copying information from a floppy disk to a diskette, for example, does not bring the desired result. I'll show you how to make a floppy disk image. Well, how to burn a floppy disk from an image. The program interface is intuitive, although, as practice shows, not for everyone. There were a couple of calls about the work of the program, but I think that, most likely, people simply did not want to figure it out themselves. What for? If you can call.

So, to make an image of a floppy disk, or to recover from an image, we need only two menu items. These are "File" and "Disk/Drive". In the picture above, red arrows point to these menu items. Well, let's install a floppy disk (blank) in the drive, if you do not have a floppy drive, then you can use the program , and install the floppy in this program. When you click on the "Disk / Drive" menu item, you can see the following picture:

Before reading a floppy disk, you need to make sure that the program will read the floppy disk, and not, say, the C: drive. That is, the checkbox is set as shown in the figure above, opposite the A: drive, and not the C: drive. Convinced? Then click "Read disk (floppy)", as shown in the picture above and wait for the disk to be read in the drive. The floppy disk is read by track, so you have to wait here. If the drive is physical - then 3-5 minutes, if virtual - then a few seconds. It should be noted that even if an empty diskette is inserted into the drive, reading will still occur, and as a result you can get an image of a "blank" diskette. But we do not need this, so I put the files in the drive, as shown in the figure below, and read the floppy disk (by the way, I used a virtual drive):

Our task is to make a floppy disk image, so let's do it by clicking on the menu item "File" --> "Save as ...", see the figure below:

The usual explorer opens, we come up with a name for the image and indicate the location on the disk where this image will be stored. I recommend creating a separate folder and putting all your images there, if you decide to use this program, of course. So, here's what we got:

In general, I prefer to save images in *.ima format, although in principle it doesn't matter in what format you save it. This does not mean that you should do the same as you want, and keep it. As a result, we get a floppy disk image file that can be stored on your hard drive:

As can be seen from the figure, the file size corresponds to the capacity of the floppy disk, and no matter what information was on the disk, the image will always be the same size. As you already understood, in order to recover from an image, you must first open the image file using the "Open ..." menu item (see Fig. No. 4), and then, inserting a blank floppy disk into the drive, burn it using the "Burn" menu item disk (floppy disk)" (see Fig. No. 2). Well, that's basically all. Good luck with this program.

4.3. Creating diskettes from disk images

Boot floppies are usually used last, if there is no other way to boot the installer on a machine that cannot boot from CD or otherwise.

Disk images are files that contain full information from diskette to raw (raw) form. Disk images such as boot.img cannot be copied to a floppy in the usual way. To do this, you need to use a special program that writes file images to a floppy disk in non-standard mode. This is a must, as the images are raw floppy data; recording requires execution sector-by-sector copying data from a file to a floppy disk.

There are several techniques (platform dependent) for creating floppy disks from disk images. This section describes how to create floppy disks from disk images on various platforms.

No matter how you create the floppies, you just have to remember to switch the write protection on the floppies after they've been created so you don't inadvertently damage them.

4.3.1. Burning disk images from Linux or Unix systems

To write disk image files to floppy disks, you will probably need superuser rights. Insert a good, blank floppy disk into the drive. Then enter the command

$ dd if= file of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 conv=sync ; sync

where file is one of the floppy file images. /dev/fd0 is the drive's device name and may be different from the one used on your machine. The command may complete before Unix has finished writing to the floppy, so keep an eye on the floppy drive lamp and make sure the lamp is off and the disk has stopped spinning before removing the floppy. On some systems, you need to issue a command to eject the floppy disk from the drive.

Some systems try to automatically mount a floppy after it appears in the drive. You may need to turn this feature off, otherwise the workstation will not allow you to write to the floppy in non-standard (raw) mode . Unfortunately, how to achieve this depends on the operating system.

If the recording is made on powerpc Linux, then you need to extract it. Program eject handles it well; you may need to install it.

4.3.2. Burning disk images from DOS, Windows or OS/2

If you have access to an i386 or amd64 machine, you can use one of the programs mentioned below to copy the images to floppy disks.

You can use programs in MS-DOS rawrite1 and rawrite2. First make sure you boot into DOS. Trying to use these programs in a DOS window under Windows, or by double-clicking from Windows Explorer, most likely not will work.

Program rwwrtwin works under Windows 95, NT, 98, 2000, ME, XP and probably later. To use it, you need to unpack diskio.dll into the same directory.

These utilities can be found on the official Debian CDs in the /tools directory.

4.3.3. Burning disc images from MacOS

To create floppy disks from image files, there is an AppleScript, Make Debian Floppy. It can be downloaded from . Just place it on your desktop, then drag any floppy image file onto it. You must have Applescript installed and enabled in the extension manager. Disk Copy will ask you to confirm that you want to erase the floppy disk and write the file image to it.

Also, you can immediately use the MacOS utility Disk Copy or a free utility suntar. The root.bin file is an example floppy disk image. Use one of the following methods to create a diskette from an image.

4.3.3.1. Burning disc images with Disk Copy

If you are creating a floppy from a file image that comes from the official Debian GNU/Linux CD, then the Type and Creator are already set correctly. Next steps Creator Changer only needed if you downloaded the image files from a Debian mirror.

Get Creator-Changer and use it to open the root.bin file.

Change Creator to ddsk(Disk Copy) and Type to DDim(binary floppy image). The case of the input data is important.

Important: In Finder, use Get info what to see Finder information about the floppy image, and in the field File Locked must stand" X » to prevent macOS from removing boot blocks if the image is accidentally mounted.

Get Disk Copy; if you have a MacOS system and have a CD, then most likely you already have it, otherwise try