How to create empty floppy image with Virtual Box Windows guest?

Question

I just want some way to create empty floppy disk images, which I can use with Virtual Box - Client is Windows XP.

Answer 1

Linux:

fallocate -l 1474560 myimage.vfd

Linux & other Unix-like systems:

head -c 1474560 /dev/zero > myimage.vfd

Windows:

fsutil file createnew myimage.vfd 1474560

You'll have an empty "1.44 MB" image. Attach it to VirtualBox and format through "My Computer" in the guest.

---

If you want to format the image on the host system or to copy files into it, use mkfs.vfat + mount -o loop on Linux, and VFD on Windows.

Linux:

mkfs.vfat myimage.vfd
sudo mount -o loop myimage.vfd /mnt
...
sudo umount /mnt

Windows:

vfd open 0: myimage.vfd
vfd format 0:
...
vfd close 0:

Windows, create, format and mount in one command:

vfd open 0: myimage.vfd /new /1.44

Answer 2

With linux ist is very easy to create an empty floppy image with 'dd'.

This thread in the virtualbox forum contains a downloadable empty floppy image for you: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=1426