Creating Disk Images

Basic Disk Images

There are two ways in AppleWin to create a blank floppy disk image:

A) Native Disk Menu

The easiest way to to create a blank disk image is to:
  1. Right-Click on the Drive 1 toolbar button (or press Ctrl-F3) to open the drive pop-up menu.

  2. Depending on the File System desired select:

    Newer programs tend to use ProDOS while older programs tend to use DOS 3.3.

    3. NOTE: By default a new ProDOS disk image will have four files copied onto it:

    If you want to free up more room on a ProDOS disk you can toggle these individually on/off for which file(s) should be copied. (Your preferences persist for the next time you use AppleWin in the registry.)

  3. You will then be asked to optionally name the disk image.

    The name will default to:

    NOTE: The ### is the current date-time-stamp in YEAR-MON-DAY-HHh-MMm-SSs format.

  4. Click SAVE when ready.

You are now ready to use your new disk image.

B) Classic Disk Creation

In older versions of AppleWin there was only one way to natively create an empty disk image. To create an empty disk image:

  1. Clicking on the drive icon, and
  2. Type an image file name ending in .DSK (or .DO) which doesn't already exist.

AppleWin will automatically create a new 5.25" image (standard 140 KB, 16 sectors/track, 35 tracks) file which is empty and non-bootable. (See Disk Sizes or Advanced Formatting Options for more information.)

Manually putting DOS 3.3 on a blank disk so it is bootable
Formatting a disk will put a File System on it and (optionally) copy a Disk Operating System (DOS 3.3, ProDOS, etc.) onto it. This will also make the disk bootable (copies a small assembly language program called the boot sector to Track 0, Sector 0) such that you can use PR#6 too boot it.

Specifying a new disk image is like inserting a blank, unformatted floppy disk into a real drive.  This means that the image must be formatted (either by the emulator or some other utility) before it can be used. Specifically, this is what you would do using DOS 3.3:

  1. Click on the Drive 1 toolbar button (or press F3)
  2. Load a master DOS 3.3 disk image (eg. DOS 3.3 System Master - 680-0210-A.dsk) in drive 1 and boot the emulated Apple.
  3. Boot the emulated Apple by clicking on the button (or press F2).
  4. Click on the Drive 1 toolbar button (or press F3) again.
  5. Instead of selecting a disk image from the list, type in a name for a new disk image and press enter.

    NOTE: The filename SHOULD end in .DSK or .DO.

  6. Type in a program that you want DOS to run whenever this new disk is booted. A simple but useful program is this Applesoft BASIC program:

    10 PRINT CHR$(4);"CATALOG"

  7. Type "INIT HELLO" to initialize (format) the disk image.

    This will:

You now have a working disk image, which you can use to save documents or other information. If you want to fill this image with data from a real floppy disk that you have, then you need to "transfer" the disk's data. See the Transferring Disk Images topic for more information.

Please note that not all disk image types supported by AppleWin can be created in this manner.  Since there is no way to detect the image type from the image itself, it is determined by the given file extension only. Six extensions are allowed:

If the extension is completely omitted, .DSK will be chosen by default.

For more information, see Disk Image Formats.

Advanced Disk Creation

For finer control over disk formatting see Advanced Formatting Options.