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I'm running a virtualbox ms dos 6.22 emulator and I need quite a lot of virtual floppy images filled with software.
Does anyone know a good program to efficiently create floppy images and fill them with my specified files??

It's for an Old School Gaming Night and we want it to be as authentic as possible.

Both software as ways to mount several floppys at once (or to mount, unmount and to mount the next floppy in quick succession) using the terminal are appreciated.

Akisame
  • 3,343

2 Answers2

16

You can create a blank floppy image with the command:

mkfs.msdos -C /path/imagefile.img 1440

On some systems /mkfs.msdos is under /sbin directory. Afterwards you can mount it as loopback device with command:

sudo mkdir /media/floppy1/
sudo mount -o loop /path/imagefile.img /media/floppy1/

To unmount, use the command

sudo umount /media/floppy1/

If you want to create an image from the physical floppy disk, use dd command (disclaimer - I didn't try the below as my floppy is gone! but should work) (and assume that's 1.44MB type floppy disk... 1.2MB ones should have gone at the time of DOS 6.22 )

dd bs=512 count=2880 if=/dev/fda of=/path/imagefile.img

Reference: man page of mkfs.msdos; Create mount and copy floppy disks images under linux

Kenneth L
  • 917
1

I have experienced this too. One solution is trying:

dd bs=512 count=2880 if=/dev/fda of=/path/imagefile.img

If that fails:

  • go to the disks app,
  • press the 3 lines at the top left corner where it says disks,
  • press new disk, and make your .img file.
jlouzado
  • 645
Anhad Chugh
  • 11