On 11/3/22 3:26 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
But, why do IMAGING on PC-DOS disks?
My /personal/ and primary use case is for use in virtual machines where disk images (a la dd) is best (in my experience).
Why not just copy the files, and "ZIP" them?
Ziped (et al.) files are nice for some things. But the aren't readily usable with virtual machines without access to where the zip files are. Conversely I can attach a disk image to a virtual machine and start using it immediately.
As for Zip specific, I'm not aware if /integrated/ Zip file support prior to Windows XP. So the MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, and Windows NT / 2k that I want to mess with can't work with Zip files directly.
I also like how I can mount a loop back of the disk image and make the files therein accessible on Linux, my chosen host OS.
Other than bootable or copy-protected, then re-creation is format a disk and copy the files onto it.
I largely agree. However being a person that plays with different operating systems in virtual machines, I need to boot and / or readily attach images to the VM.
In what way would "better than DD" be needed?
I'm too ignorant to be able to answer that. dd has served /my/ needs. However I think there is some consensus, I don't know how general it is, that dd or simple file copy tends to not be sufficient for some things.
I believe it's technically possible to re-create an MS-DOS boot disk by formatting and then copying IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and then COMMAND.COM to the floppy disk in that order. I think the same methodology can be used with PC-DOS. But that's /just/ /DOS/ and doesn't cover boot disks for other operating systems that I play with.
-- Grant. . . . unix || die
