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Cannot copy onto floppy drive

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Reply 80 of 86, by DaveDDS

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Btw: I personally don't like the use of ".IMZ" "compressed" disk image files, because:

-They can be comfusing to guys not intimately familier with disk images and creating/manipulating them.

--.IMGs have been around pretty much since the beginning of imaging and are very simple - raw binary sector dumps of a disk. This also means that you can tell the geometry of the disk represented by an image by it's size.

You can tell if an image is "odd" if the size doesn't match what you expect.
For example, these are the PC image formats supported by my FDI (FloppyDiskImage)
tool:

160k       163,840
180k 184,320
200k 204,800
320k 327,680
360k 368,640
400k 409,600
720k 737,280
1.2m 1,228,800
1.44m 1,474,560
2.88m 2,949,120

And ... .IMGs are SIMPLE raw binary dumps of sectors. No "extra" information is included in the file - most software looks at the size of the file to determine what type of drive it represents.

.IMZ can be any size regardless of the actual disk type, meaning that type has to be encoded in the file, and you need the right software to identify it.
- This also means that if a .IMZ is slightly damaged/corrupted, good luck recovering any original data from it!

--They either can't be used "live" (running with them in a virtual machine), or a VM has to do a LOT more work to support them - having to regenerate and re-compress the whole image when any sector is written.

--They are not supported by much disk imaging software (for the above reasons)

----

IMHO the only things .IMZs can be used for is long-term storage of a disks content - so why not just use a standard .IMG and archive it using any one of many available file compression tools.

https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ; "Daves Old Computers" ; SW dev addict best known:
ImageDisk: rd/wr ANY floppy PChw can ; Micro-C: compiler for DOS+ManySmallCPU ; DDLINK: simple/small filecopy(w/o netSW)via Lan/Lpt/Com

Reply 81 of 86, by Im from Windows

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NeoG_ wrote on Yesterday, 22:33:
You already successfully created a win98 boot disk using the same method, all you have to do is do the same thing again […]
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Im from Windows wrote on Yesterday, 21:17:

I dose not work! it just opens the entire contence of DISK1/2/3/4 up. please see attachemtn

You already successfully created a win98 boot disk using the same method, all you have to do is do the same thing again

- Open the .ima file with WinImage
- Disk -> Use Floppy A:
- Disk -> Write Disk

Remember the Disk menu is the text menu at the top, not the icons

yes thanks for reminding me! I managed to get MSDOS 6.22 Disk 1 written to disk
Booted it and its the same thing as win98 insulation! want to format the entire drive so no good!
But it dose not matter anyway as i have no more working disks the entire 86 batch of them are all faulty!

Reply 82 of 86, by Im from Windows

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DaveDDS wrote on Yesterday, 22:53:
**The first list I showed is the CONTENT of DOSBOOT.ZIP which you can get from my site: […]
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Im from Windows wrote on Yesterday, 21:27:

I cant see that list from your site; nor can i see a DOSBOOT.ZIP from that list either! (only a .TXT)

**The first list I showed is the CONTENT of DOSBOOT.ZIP which you can get from my site:

Go to my site ( https://dunfield.themindfactory.com )

Click "Download files" ( near bottom of main page )

Click "DOSBOOT" ( titles are in alphabetical order - this is maybe 1/3 way down page )

Thanks! found it now. but I am going to have to leave it because the whole batch of disk are faulty

Reply 84 of 86, by DaveDDS

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Im from Windows wrote on Today, 11:56:
DaveDDS wrote on Today, 10:15:

OK, I have tossed together a Win98 edition of my DOS boot disk.
You can get it here: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/Drop/WIN98.ZIP

Do you burn that file to CD?

No, It's not Windows98 itself, it's just a bootable floppy disk image of DOS from Win98.

The possible advantage over the 6.22 DOS is that it's the exact same DOS and FDISK that would be part of Win98 install boot floppy.

Just in case DOS 6.22 and it's FDISK are not 100% compatible with W98 partitions.

A possibly slightly better option for deleting partitions than DOS 6.22

You just write it to a floppy and boot it just like 6.22 - but it sounds like you might have already gotten far enough that you won't need it!

https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ; "Daves Old Computers" ; SW dev addict best known:
ImageDisk: rd/wr ANY floppy PChw can ; Micro-C: compiler for DOS+ManySmallCPU ; DDLINK: simple/small filecopy(w/o netSW)via Lan/Lpt/Com

Reply 85 of 86, by Im from Windows

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DaveDDS wrote on Today, 12:24:
No, It's not Windows98 itself, it's just a bootable floppy disk image of DOS from Win98. […]
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Im from Windows wrote on Today, 11:56:
DaveDDS wrote on Today, 10:15:

OK, I have tossed together a Win98 edition of my DOS boot disk.
You can get it here: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com/Drop/WIN98.ZIP

Do you burn that file to CD?

No, It's not Windows98 itself, it's just a bootable floppy disk image of DOS from Win98.

The possible advantage over the 6.22 DOS is that it's the exact same DOS and FDISK that would be part of Win98 install boot floppy.

Just in case DOS 6.22 and it's FDISK are not 100% compatible with W98 partitions.

A possibly slightly better option for deleting partitions than DOS 6.22

You just write it to a floppy and boot it just like 6.22 - but it sounds like you might have already gotten far enough that you won't need it!

I wanted to ask you about the DOSSBOOT program you link before. what was the purpose of it as there are so many files to write to floppy

Reply 86 of 86, by DaveDDS

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Im from Windows wrote on Today, 13:23:

I wanted to ask you about the DOSSBOOT program you link before. what was the purpose of it as there are so many files to write to floppy

DOSBOOT is an archive I created to allow "modern" users to experience historical DOS as it developed.

There are bootable images within it for 16 (last time I counted) different versions of DOS, ranging from IBM DOS 0.90 (pre-release), IBM DOS 1.00 all the way up to IBM PC DOS 7.1
as well as several of the most common versions of MS-DOS, Caldera "open DOS", FreeDOS and even a Russian version.

I didn't expect you to use most of them, it's just a place I know ( and trust 😀 )where you get could a bootable MS-DOS 6.22 image (6.22 IIRC is the last "MS DOS" before "ver" started reporting "Winblows". It also has DSKWRITE.EXE which as far as I know is the simplest way to write and image to a "real disk" under Winblows.

Sorry if I wasn't more clear - just trying t set you up so you could delete partitions!

https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ; "Daves Old Computers" ; SW dev addict best known:
ImageDisk: rd/wr ANY floppy PChw can ; Micro-C: compiler for DOS+ManySmallCPU ; DDLINK: simple/small filecopy(w/o netSW)via Lan/Lpt/Com