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:

1160k       163,840
2180k       184,320
3200k       204,800
4320k       327,680
5360k       368,640
6400k       409,600
7720k       737,280
81.2m     1,228,800
91.44m    1,474,560
102.88m    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.

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-07-06, 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 2026-07-06, 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!

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-06, 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 2026-07-06, 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

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-07, 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?

Im from Windows wrote on 2026-07-07, 11:56:

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-07, 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!

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-07, 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 2026-07-07, 11:56:

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-07, 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

Im from Windows wrote on 2026-07-07, 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!

So I though I would try another idea!
Copied and pasted the entire contence of the 20GB of C:\ folder to a flash USB memory stick (RAM). Booted the machine and selected the memory stick as the bootable drive. But sadly error message of "Disk error, press any key to continue". (yes I know the MB and BIOS can and do boot OSs from USB sticks).

So just out of luck though i would try my win98 boot Fdisk to see if it would help it boot, but sadly not!

Is there anywhere that I can get a program to get this memory stick to boot winxp by any chance?

Thanks

Im from Windows wrote on 2026-07-08, 16:41:

So I though I would try another idea! Copied and pasted the entire contence of the 20GB of C:\ folder to a flash USB memory stic […]
Show full quote

So I though I would try another idea!
Copied and pasted the entire contence of the 20GB of C:\ folder to a flash USB memory stick (RAM). Booted the machine and selected the memory stick as the bootable drive. But sadly error message of "Disk error, press any key to continue". (yes I know the MB and BIOS can and do boot OSs from USB sticks).

So just out of luck though i would try my win98 boot Fdisk to see if it would help it boot, but sadly not!

Is there anywhere that I can get a program to get this memory stick to boot winxp by any chance?

Thanks

That can be dangerous if you enable paging on said installation. That'll burn through the disk's lifespan really quickly (I do admit I managed to install Windows 95 on one, but that has the pagefile fully disabled).

Normal fdisk won't work on it I think, as the BIOS boot protocol for USB devices is different from a HDD?

El-Torito style booting is possible, but that'll make the USB read-only (that's used for newer Windows installation USBs for example Windows 10/11). Also, XP doesn't support booting from USB (requiring special boot-time drivers), so that might give booting problems.

Is there anywhere that I can get a program to get this memory stick to boot winxp by any chance?

Hi, there was a mini XP on Hiren's boot CD, I vaguely remember. That's a live CD for PC repair.
Being a CD distro, it can be used to make a bootable USB pen drive.

That being said, I'm afraid there are misunderstandings in communication in this thread. 😟

Jo22 wrote on 2026-07-08, 22:03:

Hi, there was a mini XP on Hiren's boot CD, I vaguely remember. That's a live CD for PC repair.
Being a CD distro, it can be used to make a bootable USB pen drive. ...

I still use it sometimes (booted from CD) ... I also have something called "TinyXP" that I found somewhere and never really played with (this is kinda the reason there's large boxes of DVDs and hard drives in my basement - kinda a "digital horder" 😀 )

I've not tried it with Hirens, but IIRC Rufus can make pretty much any bootable ISO into a bootable USB stick. (I use it mostly to boot floppy images on systems with no floppy drive)

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-08, 22:14:

... I also have something called "TinyXP" that I found somewhere and never really played with ...

So, I found the TinyXP I mentioned earlier, and here's (much condensed) text from it's into:

1---------------------------------------
2eXPerience Presents...       Windows TinyXP Rev09
3---------------------------------------
4When you boot from this CD you have the following options:
5Choosing #1 at the main menu, gives you the following menu:
6 1 - TinyXP With IE/OE/WMP (With Added Driverpacks)
7 2 - TinyXP With IE/OE/WMP (Without Added Driverpacks)
8 3 - TinyXP Without IE/OE/WMP (With Added Driverpacks)
9 4 - TinyXP Without IE/OE/WMP (Without Added Driverpacks)
10 5 - TinyXP BARE With IE/OE/WMP (With Added Driverpacks)
11 6 - TinyXP BARE With IE/OE/WMP (Without Added Driverpacks)
12 7 - TinyXP BARE Without IE/OE/WMP (With Added Driverpacks)
13 8 - TinyXP BARE Without IE/OE/WMP (Without Added Driverpacks)
14 9 - TinyXP With Repair Option (Product Key Already Filled In) 
15Choosing #2 at the main menu, gives you the following menu:
16 1 - Acronis Backup + Restore (Safe For Vista)
17 2 - Damn Small Linux v4.3
18 3 - Hiren's BootCD v9.5
19 4 - SpinRite v6.0

There is also a ISO directory with tools to build TinyXP ISOs, and a README showing sizes:

1TinyXP.With.IE.OE.WMP.With.Driverpacks.iso ...................... [450Mb]
2TinyXP.With.IE.OE.WMP.Without.Driverpacks.iso ................... [294Mb]
3TinyXP.Without.IE.OE.WMP.With.Driverpacks.iso ................... [388Mb]
4TinyXP.Without.IE.OE.WMP.Without.Driverpacks.iso ................ [232Mb]
5TinyXP.BARE.With.IE.OE.WMP.With.Driverpacks.iso ................. [416Mb]
6TinyXP.BARE.With.IE.OE.WMP.Without.Driverpacks.iso .............. [260Mb]
7TinyXP.BARE.Without.IE.OE.WMP.With.Driverpacks.iso .............. [355Mb]
8TinyXP.BARE.Without.IE.OE.WMP.Without.Driverpacks.iso ........... [199Mb]
9TinyXP.Standard.Untweaked.Installation.With.Repair.Option.iso ... [216Mb]
1011.12.Acronis.DSL.Hirens.iso .................................... [175Mb]

Of course I have no idea how legal/legit the content of this CD is - don't ask me to send it to you!