I need to create an etherboot floppy image that I can use to boot Parallels VM (see http://etherboot.org if you are interested). Anyways, I can get .iso (bootable floppy image) or .liso (bootable floppy image with legacy floppy emulation). However, I have no idea how to turn these into the .fdd file that Parallels wants. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks! -ian P.S. I have searched this forum, and the Parallels docs. Lots of discussions that are "close". But, nothing that directly addresses my questions.
Postscript on the chance that I might get lucky, I tried renaming the .iso image to .fdd and tried to boot Parallels off that. No dice: the VM says "No boot devices available, press Enter to continue." And, yes, I made the floppy the first item in the boot sequence. Thanks in advance for any help! -ian
Never Mind Sorry, I am so slow sometimes (ok, all the time). The solution is to use my floppy .iso as a CD. Parallels is booting that just fine as I type this.
Well, the question still is -- how do you create a FDD image? If there is no way for us users to create one, then what good is it? If that is the case, then why doesn't it just work with an ISO image?
Yes, still a valid question You are correct, how does one create a .fdd file is stil a valid question. Hopefully, someone will provide the answer.
Parallels Image Tool for Windows/Linux is able to create images of floppy drive disks in *.fdd format. Unfortunately, this functionality is not available in OSX version as mac's are being shipped without floppy reader devices.
A bootable ISO file can be in one of three modes: Floppy Emulation, HDD Emulation and "No Emulation". Assuming that the ISO is Floppy Emulation, you need to extract the portion of the ISO image that contains the floppy disk image. There is a nice Windows tool to do this called BBIE (Google for it). Once you have the image file you can just rename it and PW should be able to boot from it. However, if the ISO is truly bootable, then it should boot directly in PW. Thr "trick" is to connect to it from the CDROM panel in PW (not the floppy panel). The logic is: you are using a virtual CDROM to simulate a real CDROM via an ISO image, and within the VM the BIOS is using the CDROM Floppy Emulation to emulate a floppy. --Tim
There are plenty of third party USB floppies available for the Mac (and other platfoms). Since the image tool is running in the host OS, making it work would seem pretty easy, and would certainly make life easier for those who need floppies.
