phima -- image any FAT volume or CD/DVD
--- Freeware ---

[page last modified 2007-03-12]

phima.com is a tiny 16-bit command-line program to create an "image" of DOS volume (e.g. "A:").  The result image file is a copy of all the data from the DOS volume.

I originally wrote this so I could generate a copy of the "pseudo-floppy" A: image that is within a bootable CD (hence the rather backward command-line arguments -- originally there was no drive letter designation).

There are other programs that do this -- it's a simple function -- but I wanted a program that I could place on a bootable CD and run from the DOS command line.

The default output file will have a .IMA extension.  This is compatible with NERO, for instance, as a source floppy image for use in burning a bootable CD.

phima.com is primarily intended to image diskettes, but any FAT volume should work -- even one hundreds of gigabytes in size.  You may also target CD/DVD's as well, though what flavors of these may be imaged successfully I'm not sure (my ISO 9660 boot CD and data DVD's burned by Nero work fine).

By default the entire volume is imaged; however, you may specify the starting sector number and number of sectors to output.  This is handy for, as an example, extracting just the boot sector.  This is similar to the Linux/Unix "disk dump" (dd) functionality, if only a tiny subset of it.

If the output image exceeds 2gb, overflow file(s) with the extensions .001 .002 etc.  are created.  If your goal is to create a single .ISO file, you'll have to rejoin these pieces in Windows on a volume (say NTFS) that supports the necessary large file size, with an operation similar to  "copy /b img.ima+img.001+img.002 img.iso"

If you are interested in how phima works, the 'C' source is provided.  It's a single file a few hundred lines long.

Here is the help given from the current version:

Ver 2.0 - Make .ima/.iso file.  (c) 2006, PaulHoule.com.
Makes drive image file.  Originally for a floppy, but will work
with CD/DVD/FAT32, splitting output across files if necessary.
Note: only floppies can be imaged in a DOS box -- use true DOS.


    USAGE: phima Outfile{.ima} {Drive{:} {Start {Count}}}


Outfile may be - for stdout, or ? for stats only.
Drive is A..Z (defaults to A:).
Start is start sector number (defaults to 0).
Count is # sectors (defaults to all).

updates to version 2.0 3/12/07:  added start sector, sector count arguments.  added ability to image MSCDEX volume -- i.e. CD's, DVD's.  Allowed variable sector size.  Allowed '?' output file name to just dump volume stats.  Enhanced progress message.

Click here to download  phima20.zip

version 1.0 released 2/2/07:

Click here to download  phima10.zip

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