Disk Image Formats

Filesystems and other file formats described on this page's parent page describe entities that exist on disks as they would normally be used.

However, there are also file formats that allow a physical disk (or tape or other medium) to be "imaged" into a file, either to be re-copied onto a physical disk later, or else used by an *emulator* of the computer system that would have originally used that sort of media.

These file formats represent a data image of one of the physical floppy disk (etc.) formats. In addition to the raw data from the disk/tape/etc, these formats may contain metadata that the corresponding emulator environment uses to correctly access the data.

Typically, when archiving a physical disk for later use, a physical disk will be imaged into one of these file formats. Sub-pages of this page should contain information on the format itself as well as instructions on how to extract a physical disk into that disk image format, including information about what physical drives are required, what software to use and how and what OS that is run under.

See also ROM and memory images for images of memory, and Floppy disks for the physical floppies. See Archiving for archive and backup formats that are filesystem-based rather than raw-sector-based. See Filesystem for the filesystems.

Floppy Disk Image Formats
Images created directly from floppy disks.

Acorn

 * Acorn Archimedes Disk Image

Amiga

 * ADF (Amiga)
 * Disk Imploder (Amiga) (.dmp, .dex)
 * Disk Masher System (Amiga) (.dms)

Amstrad

 * DSK (CPCEMU), used for Amstrad and related disks (typically 3" disks)

APF Imagination Machine

 * APD (APF Imagination Machine emulated disk) (.apd)

Apple II series

 * Apple Disk Image (Apple II disk image with header) (.2mg)
 * DART (Apple)
 * Disk Copy 4.2 (Apple)
 * Disk Copy 6 (Apple)
 * DSK (Apple II), used for Apple II disks (typically 5.25" disks)
 * Nibblized disk image (.nib), an Apple II disk image format that works for copy-protected disks

Atari

 * ATR (SIO2PC)
 * DCM (Disk Communicator)
 * DI (800XL DJ emulator)
 * DIM (F-Copy)
 * MSA
 * PRO (APE ProSystem)
 * SCP (Spartados)
 * ST disk image
 * STT (STEEM)
 * XFD (Xformer)

Commodore 64/128

 * C64 Nibbler Format (.nib) (created by mnib)
 * D64 and its variants (D71, D81, all with optional error information) from the C64
 * G64 C64 raw (GCR coded) disk image

Macintosh

 * Apple Disk Image (MacOS or OS X disk image with header) (.dmg, .smi, .img)

Tandy

 * DMK
 * JV1/JV3

Misc.

 * DiscFerret floppy image (.dfi)
 * Famicom Disk System (.fds)
 * FDI (Formatted Disk Image)
 * IMA
 * IMD (ImageDisk)
 * MESS floppy image (.mfi)
 * Pasopia disk image (.d88)
 * Raw disk image (.img) (ie, created with dd)
 * TD0 (TeleDisk)

Physical (Hardware) Images

 * DRAFT (Software Preservation Society intermediate format)
 * IPF (Software Preservation Society image format)

Optical Disc Image Formats
CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, BluRay, GD-ROM etc.


 * BWI (BlindWrite Image File)
 * CDI (Disc Juggler)
 * CloneCD Control File (.ccd, .img, .sub)
 * CUE and BIN
 * DDP (Disc Description Protocol)
 * DMG (Apple)
 * ISO image (.iso)
 * ISZ
 * MDF and MDS
 * NRG (Nero Burning ROM)

Hard Disk Image Formats

 * HDV

Virtual Machine Disks and Virtualization Image Formats

 * OVF (Open Virtualization Format)
 * qcow (QEMU)
 * VDI (Virtual Disk Image) (VirtualBox) (.vdi)
 * VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) (Microsoft) (.vhd)
 * VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) (VMWare) (.vmdk)

Tape Image Formats

 * APT (APF Imagination Machine emulated tape, logical bits) (.apt)
 * APW (APF Imagination Machine emulated tape, raw audio) (.apw)
 * CAS (Atari; Digital Cassette Image system)
 * PZX (ZX Spectrum)
 * TAP (ZX Spectrum)
 * Tap file (contains data from Commodore data cassette)
 * TZX (ZX Spectrum)
 * Unified Emulator Format (UEF; also does Acorn disks and ROMs)

Unknown

 * lbl See here for details: http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2012-December/326747.html

Tools

 * The Sleuth Kit and Autopsy can read raw, Expert Witness, and AFF formats
 * WinImage to read, write and create images, also lots of info

See also Disk Imaging Software & Systems, and Forensics and Law Enforcement.