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. Forensics and Law Enforcement has formats for preserving drive contents with metadata for investigations.

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)
 * WRP

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

 * A2R disk image
 * Apple Disk Image (Apple II disk image with header) (.2mg)
 * Disk Copy 4.2 (Apple)
 * Disk Copy 6 (Apple)
 * DSK (Apple II), used for Apple II disks (typically 5.25" disks)
 * EDD disk image
 * Nibblized disk image (.nib), an Apple II disk image format that works for copy-protected disks
 * WOZ disk image

Atari 8-bit

 * ATR (SIO2PC)
 * DCM (Disk Communicator)
 * DI (800XL DJ emulator)
 * PRO (APE ProSystem)
 * SCP (Spartados)
 * XFD (Xformer)

Atari ST

 * DIM (F-Copy)
 * The JAM Packer
 * MSA (Magic Shadow Archiver)
 * ST disk image
 * STT (STEEM)
 * STX (Pasti)

Commodore 64/128/PET/CBM

 * 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)
 * DART (Apple)
 * MOOF
 * Sparse image (Apple disk image) (.sparseimage)

MSX

 * PDI (Protected Disk Image)

PC (DOS/Windows)

 * 86F (86Box)
 * CopyQM
 * DDI (DiskDupe image file)
 * Disk Express (.dxp)
 * DSQ
 * FDF Image (EZ-DisKlone)
 * FDI (Formatted Disk Image)
 * IMA
 * IMD (ImageDisk)
 * IMG (HD-Copy disk image)
 * LoadDskF/SaveDskF (.dsk)
 * Quick Release Sector Transfer (Compaq)
 * RIM (EZ-DiskCopy PRO)
 * TD0 (TeleDisk)
 * XPACK disk image (.xdi)

Tandy

 * DMK
 * JV1/JV3
 * JVC

ZX Spectrum

 * Mirage Microdrive Snapshot
 * TRD (see TR-DOS filesystem)

Misc.

 * Anex86 PC98 floppy image (.fdi)
 * D88 (.d88, .1dd, .2dd)
 * DiscFerret floppy image (.dfi)
 * DSK (Oric)
 * Famicom Disk System (.fds)
 * LDBS disk image (.ldbs)
 * MESS floppy image (.mfi)
 * Pasopia disk image (.d88)
 * Raw disk image (.img) (ie, created with dd)
 * Compressed Hunks of Data (.chd)

Physical (Hardware) Images

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

Optical Disc Image Formats
CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, BluRay, GD-ROM etc. For the physical formats, see Optical Discs.


 * BlindWrite Image File (.bwi, .bwt, .b5i, .b6i) wiki
 * CDI (Disc Juggler)
 * CloneCD Control File (.ccd, .img, .sub)
 * C2D Roxio
 * CIF Image Roxio
 * CUE and BIN
 * CyberLink P2I
 * DDP (Disc Description Protocol)
 * DMG (Apple)
 * GI (Sonic Global Image File)
 * ISOBuster Managed Image (IBP/IBQ)
 * ISO image (.iso)
 * ISZ
 * MDF and MDS
 * NRG (Nero Burning ROM)
 * TOAST (Roxio Toast)
 * XDI (Extended Disc Image)
 * TOC (CDRDAO)

Optical Disc Project Formats
Disc Burning Software Project files


 * Nero Burning ROM
 * NRI (CD-ROM Compilation)
 * Nero CoverDesigner
 * NSD Super VCD Compilation
 * NRV Video CD Compilation
 * NRE CD Extra Compilation
 * CDL (Corel CD Creator)
 * Easy CD Creator (CL2, CL3, CL4)
 * CL5 (Roxio EasyCD Creator 5)
 * RCL (Roxio Creator Classic)
 * ROXIO (Roxio Creator Classic/Easy Media Creator)
 * ROX (Roxio Creator NXT)
 * DMSD (Roxio MyDVD)
 * DISC (Roxio TOAST)
 * DVD Sonic (Sonic myDVD .dvd)
 * NTI CD-DVD Maker (.cmd)
 * Adobe Encore (.ncor)
 * DVD Studio Pro (.dspproj)
 * CyberLink Power2Go

Hard Disk Image Formats

 * HDV
 * Raw disk image (.img)

Virtual Machine Disks and Virtualization Image Formats

 * OVF (Open Virtualization Format)
 * qcow (QEMU)
 * VDI (Virtual Disk Image) (VirtualBox) (.vdi)
 * VFD (Virtual Floppy Disk) (Microsoft) (.vfd)
 * 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)
 * SIMH TAP (SIMH emulator's tape file format)
 * T64
 * TAP (Oric)
 * TAP (ZX Spectrum)
 * Tap file (contains data from Commodore data cassette)
 * Tape Image Format (TIF) (used for seismic data)
 * TZX (ZX Spectrum)
 * Unified Emulator Format (UEF; also does Acorn disks and ROMs)

Unknown

 * lbl See here for details:

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
 * Foremost: console tool to recover files from disk images
 * disktype: detect format of disk or disk image
 * TrID File Identifier: recognize many disk image formats
 * bca-webtools
 * xmount: emulates various disk image formats for use in emulators requiring them

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

Links

 * What are the reasons for saving disk images?
 * BCA-Webtools: Accessing and Visualizing Disk Images in a Web Browser