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Creating floppy images without a floppy drive

Hi

I would like to create a floppy image ( for use with VMware products) of an unattended file for windows setup

I dont have a floppy drive otherwise this would be very straightforward

Anyone know of a way / utility that can convert a file ( a text one ) into a floppy image for use with workstation / esx ?

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el1971
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Hi,

I would recommend Winimage.

--> http://www.winimage.com/winimage.htm

\-- Edi

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el1971
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Hi,

I would recommend Winimage.

--> http://www.winimage.com/winimage.htm

\-- Edi

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Spiker
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Thanks

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RDPetruska
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You can use the Workstation UI to create a blank floppy image, as well.

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Spiker
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Ok

Forgive me for being thick here but winage does not create flp images and trying to change the extension to flp has no success

I have tried dragging and dropping the text file into the formatted floppy drive within the virtual machine - which succeeds but shows only a 1kb file when i know it is larger

Any suggestions as to the best way of creating an flp image without a physical floppy drive which can be read within a vm

Thanks

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RDPetruska
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Create the default image using WinImage - an .ima file. When done, rename it to .flp and point Workstation to it.

If you create the floppy.flp file with Workstation, just open that in WinImage as well (you'll need to change it's file filter to \*.* to see it, but it \*should* open it).

Is that 1 Kb seen by the guest, or are you talking about the host's file?

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Spiker
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I have it working by :

Saving the image as a vfd first in winimage

Then renaming to .flp

renaming the other save as formats failed ( imz and ima)

All fine now

Thanks for all your suggestions

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devzero
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there is also some nice virtual floppy driver from ken kato:

http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html

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wtstephens
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If you have an Apple Mac then you can use a built-in MacOS command to create a floppy image from files in a folder.

Here is how I did it:

1) On the Mac, create a folder for the files, say, “disk1”.

2) Copy the files from the floppy (or wherever) into the folder.

3) Run this MacOS hditutil command to create a .dmg file. — which you will rename to .FLP

hdiutil create -size 1440k -fs "MS-DOS FAT12" -layout NONE -srcfolder disk1 -format UDRW -ov disk1.dmg

4) Rename the .dmg file to .FLP — be careful to change the extension, I got “.FLP.dmg” by mistake at first.

5) Copy the FLP file (or files, if you do this for more than one floppy) to your VMWare host system.

In VMWare Workstation I connected the FLP file as drive A: (but disabled ‘Connect at power on’), and then after booting the OS, used the "Connect/Disconnect" and "Settings..." popups of the floppy icon to change FLP images — because the software that I was using needed 4 floppy images to do its installation.

The floppies that I used were from 1993!  Yikes -- but no errors!  Those were the days!

 

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