Manage Floppies with Winimage
Addendum: In these days of USB and DVD, it's hard to imagine why we'd still need to worry about floppies. But I wanted to keep this article, just in case. Some people like to play with old gear..
So you know how to
create a boot floppy the proper way. Here's a method of managing your floppy disks by archiving them to files on your hard drive or a CD. Winimage is a program which lets you take 'images' of your floppy disks in much the same way as
Norton Ghost images hard disk partitions.
Using Winimage, it's not necessary to keep hundreds of old floppies boxed away, just in case they're ever needed again. Simply image and archive all your disks and then give the re-formatted old floppies away to forgetful TAFE students. If you need a floppy, then just create one using a blank disk with the archived image from your collection.
This program really comes into its own for making
bootable floppy disks. Winimage supports full drag and drop, with easy file insertion/removal from an image archive. Instead of having to SYS a floppy every time, simply make an image of a bootable floppy and drag and drop other files to/from the archive, saving it to another file name as you go. Easy.
Using Winimage
No installation is necessary. Run Winimage from a network share or copy the files to a Winimage folder and run Winimage.exe. Go to
OPTIONS,
Winimage Mode Selection to select
Professional Mode for increased functionality. Winimage can also be
cracked -er,
registered from this menu.
To
save a new floppy image, insert the 3.5" inch disk, start Winimage and press CTL-R to read the disk. Winimage will give a full directory listing, then press CTL-S to save the disk as a .imz file.
To
write an image to a floppy [overwrite the floppy], start Winimage and press CTL-O
and navigate to the folder containing the required .imz file. Once Winimage has opened the .imz file with a directory listing, press CTL-W to write the image to the floppy disk. Don't forget
all previous data on the floppy will be overwritten
Links
Winimage Website
