Hi guys !

I'm planning to develop a virtual media image (files) creator program with theses characteristics (evolutive):

1) A Command line tool
-can be include in a compilation process using "makefile"

2) virtual media option are:
- Floppy (1.44MB)
- Cdrom (including bootable)
- Hard drive (sparse one) :
- Vmdk (from vmware)
- Vhd (from virtual pc)

3) Format option are :
- Fat12 for floppies
- Fat16 and Fat32 for harddrive
- Iso9660 for Cdrom

4) Creation + format + file injection -> All these done in one step.

5) Targets:
- Os developper,
Could be useful for kernel testing purpose ...
- Virtual machine user (vmware,vpc ...).

6) Written entirely in assembler using FASM

7) Source code on demand only.

Do you think this tool could help ?

Give me your opinions.

too much work... it will take few years

I think bochs is more useful for OS development than VMWare or Virtual PC as it has a built in debugger. My makefile pretty much performs these steps during a build. 'make all' compiles the boot segment, second stage loader and kernel then injects the boot sector and copies the loader and kernel to a floppy. 'make debug' does the same and launches bochs in debug mode for testing. The only thing I dislike about this method is the use of http://www.winimage.com to inject the 2nd stage loader and kernel into the floppy image as WinImage is a windows program and requires several 'OK' mouse clicks to finish the process. There is a port of MTOOLS for windows but it lacks the ability to inject a file into a floppy image. Short of writing a utility to do this I may as well just keep clicking 'OK' and let winimage insert the files in the image. Is anyone aware of a windows or dos app that can insert files in a FAT12 floppy disk image using command line switches that doesn't require user interaction?

With this reflection you've pointed out one of the reason why I've decided to develop this tool. No more 'OK' all you'll have to do will be:
Prepare a very simple config file where you'll
- select the desire format (FileSystem=FAT12 for exemple),
- list the files to inject (sources)
- list the destination of theses files (new path) into the image.

It'll also be a window console application.

Cool. Very useful.



Cool.



What about standard .IMG files ? I never use wmdk/whd, only
QEMU and BOCHS, both free and open source and working in DOS







At least freeware ?

Cool idea, i would use it, hobby OS dev, could use it to load from NTFS partions.
Heres how it could work, you could have a fat32 image file (made with your program), stored on there NTFS XP partion, than a special loader could load the image from there ntfs partion to there hobby OS and use it like a virtual FS, than write it back at the end.
This way you could write a much simpler NTFS driver.
You could use a loader like the one i posted here:
http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12850

tantrikwizard, there are a few DOS tools that allow changing a FAT12 image file, so definitely try them all (since some are buggy):

• extract (cmdline, actually a dual MZ/PE .EXE, freeware from WinImage dude) -- list, extract (w/ or w/o paths), inject, show boot sector info
  
• shsufdrv (w/ NASM src, this is kinda buggy but seems to work ONLY in pure DOS (recent FreeDOS kernel worked for me, but DR-DOS didn't, MS-DOS supposedly works though) if you use the accompanying shsurdrv 3000k,g to make a RAM disk, copy the image file to that, then do shsufdrv /f:fdstd144.img,h /w and then h: and do whatever.
  
• Img2 (extract or add to HD-Copy, VGA-Copy/uncompressed, raw images)
  
• TurboImage (access disk images as drive, w/ .ASM src) or look a Garbo's other /diskutil/ files
  
• others I didn't list here that may prove useful: http://www.fdos.org/ripcord/rawrite/
  

Gilles, check out ATV's UNIMG.ZIP. (I tried unsuccessfully to find smiddy's BOOTFAT8.ZIP, so you'll have to search for it yourself.)

Very interesting....

Hi,
The first version of the command line tools is available !
It's is Baron.
You can read about it at http://www.gerisoft.net

Ps:Could someone explain to me how I can write a post visible only to fasm register members ? (by the way is it possible ?).

Gilles

Cool, its good that theres coders out there, that make app to support OS Dev's, thanks.

Here is a link to a good freeware stand alone floppy image utility...

http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32/floppyimage.html

check this floppy image project also: http://board.flatassembler.net/topic.php?p=28735#28735

The problem with useing FAT images for your own operating systems is that it is illegal under the terms of the microsoft FAT file specification. We 'the programmer' are only allowed to code drivers, uitilties etc... for FAT file system.

This is why linux uses the EXT2 file system!

ehemm, I think that Linux uses such filesystems for another good reasons.

I think you will find that the fat file sys, is not patented, it's the add on's that are, eg: the LFN ext, so you can use fat12 OK, not sure about fat16, but not fat32, also if you live in Germany, your OK, as they chucked as case out of court.