Why Use a Virtual Floppy Drive?

Newer computers not to mention tablets have less and less mass storage devices.

That is the last computer I bought did not have a floppy, it did not have an optical drive, and now it doesn't have a hard drive! (I changed it over to a SSD [Solid State Drive] and tablets are more dependent on their network connection because they never had any of these mass storage devices to begin with.

So what if you need to make a bootable device that uses DOS (Disk Operating System) such as a boot cd/dvd or a bootable pen drive? What about a bootable external drive?

With a program called Win to Flash you can load an operating system on a CD or flash drive but you can not do that with a external hard dive. You can however put a small DOS partition of say two or three mega bytes then the rest for programs you need for repairing or cleaning viruses.

Now that the floppy drive is dead how would you use a floppy you don't have?

By using a virtual floppy drive.

I have found one program (https://sourceforge.net/projects/vfd/) that will 'mount' a floppy image.

That is the rub, you have to make or find an image of a floppy.

What if you have a floppy drive? Does that make this a useless article?

Not really but if you still have a floppy drive and floppies or access to a floppy dive you can make a bootable floppy disk, then the image, then mount it to make your bootable usb or cd/dvd.

To make an image of an existing floppy disk you will need a program like Win Image Virtual floppy drive then you make your image.

Once you have your image made you can 'mount' it.

Then you can use your program to make your bootable cd/dvd or usb device.

Now you can throw away those ancient floppies and rip that floppy drive out of your computer (just kidding!).

Troubleshoot, repair, maintain, upgrade & secure...     With this!

Most readers of this site know and understand how to format a floppy but if you don't here is a link to my web site page Create a bootable floppy

Note: If you make a boot floppy disk with your floppy drive you only need these three files on the floppy:

IO.SYS
DOS.SYS or MSDOS.SYS
Command.com

(You may have to set the properties of the floppy to show hidden and system files)

All others can be deleted because these files are useless when you boot a modern computer.

If your computer lacks the drive then this is a viable option in making other bootable devices because the programs you would use to make a bootable CD or bootable USB drive copy the files from the simulated device and create two files to make the CD or USB bootable: boot.bin and boot.cat