The real steps
- Launch the HP drive utility and verify that the drive letter listed is the drive letter of your flash drive.
- If you are adding your first image, select “Create new or replace existing configuration.” If you want to add another item to your boot menu, select “Add configuration to existing key” and hit next.
- Select “Hard drive.”
- Select “Create new file system” and wait for the utility to format and prep your drive.
- Once done, select “Floppy Image” from A: and specify the long and short name. The short name is an easy to type phrase that will launch the utility, and the long name should be the actual name of the utility so you can easily identify it on the boot menu. In the DOS Window above, I wrote a copy of Hitachi’s DFT to our virtual floppy, so I chose “DFT” for short and “Drive Fitness Test” for long. The HP utility will now convert that to a file that is stored on the flash drive, and bootable from the boot menu of the drive.
- Finished!
- To add further items to the drive, follow the specified steps in the “Creating your bootable floppy disk” section of this guide to load another virtual floppy disk. Repeat steps 1-6 above, but this time select “Add configuration to existing key” in step two to load the new utility.
- Rebooting your computer and pressing F1+F2 when the flash drive is booting will yield a menu with all the utilities you have loaded. Entering the short name you specified in step 5 and pressing enter will send you on your way!
Images of popular utilties
Memtest86+: Grab the Pre-Compiled package for Floppy (DOS – Win) from their download site and use their included batch file to write the utility to your virtual floppy.
Drive Fitness Test: Download the “Binary diskette image for non-Windows OS” in the Drive Fitness Test of their download site and mount the image through the Windows DOS shell as in the example earlier in the article.
DOS 6.22: Head to bootdisk.com’s download section and grab the DOS 6.22 installer. It will automatically write to your virtual floppy disk, so it’s not very complicated to prep for your flash drive.
DBAN: For those of you looking to wipe a disk to department of defense standards, DBAN will satisfy your wish. Head on over to their website and grab the version for floppy drives and flash drives. The utility automatically writes to A:, so you needn’t take any extra steps.
And for all your other needs, the boys over at Ultimate Boot CD have a fantastic list of DOS utilities, and links to most of them.
Closing down the show
It’s very convenient having a bootable flash drive around. No more CDs, no more floppies, no more annoying media! Just you, your drive, and the open 16bit highway. Good luck!
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