HD-Copy is a "must have" utility for managing floppies.  Created by Mr. Oliver Fromme back in 1992, it is still as useful today as it was then.

HD-Copy is "Cardware" available in various locations in the Internet and your favorite software download site probably has copies (search for hd-copy).  We also have copies here which you can download:

hdcp20ae.zip (English version) without any user's manual.
hdcp20ad.zip (German version) with German documentation.

"Cardware" means Mr. Fromme allows any of us to use it for free but we are requested to send him a postcard so he knows who/how his software is being used.  We do not come across this term often; we suspect Mr. Fromme coined "Cardware".  If so, he has the credit for creating not only his HD-Copy floppy utility, but also the word "Cardware."  Essentially, HD-Copy is freeware.

Old Floppies Never Die, They Just Fade Away...

So we thought when new removable storage media were constantly being developed and marketed.  We were dead wrong.   Floppies just refuse to die and they are not really about to fade away any time soon.  

Some PC makers have attempted to sell PC's without floppy drives, but  most systems administrators (the decision makers in what PC's to buy or lease for the company) just cannot live without floppies and the "legacy"  floppy drives.  

Sure... there are now bootable CD's and DVD's.  But to make bootable CD's and DVD's, we generally still need to have the bootable floppies.  We just can't get away from floppies.

All of us involved in systems administration have accumulated different boot floppies that can do specific maintenance chores.  For burning in and checking all sorts of hardware, such as RAM, hard disk, sound card etc. or for preparing hard drives for OS installation,  restoring hard disk images, mounting SCSI drives, and so forth.  

Need to upgrade the BIOS of a motherboard (PC)?  You probably need a boot floppy.  Need to re-partition a hard disk drive?  You probably need a boot floppy.  Need to run your CD/DVD drive for OS installation?  You probably need a boot floppy.  Need to restore a hard disk image?  You probably need a boot floppy.  If you say you can do with a bootable CD or DVD, as mentioned earlier... those bootable CD's and DVD's were made using bootable floppies or their images.

True... we don't use floppies every day, but when trouble comes our way, chances are we pull out a floppy or two to fix the problem directly or indirectly.

But floppies are prone to errors.  They are easily destroyed by strong magnetism.  They can get destroyed by (body) humidity so you can't keep them long in a shirt pocket.  They can easily become unreadable if we hastily eject them prematurely from the floppy drive during a file write (save).  So how do we keep floppies in a safe place and make them available when we need them?

There is one DOS program that has been a loyal sys admin friend for more than 10 years for the maintenance, upkeep and archiving of floppies. .  It is Oliver Fromme's HD-Copy utility.  Mr. Fromme, (his contact details are at  http://www.secnetix.de/~olli/contact.hawk ) created his "HD-Copy" utility back in 1992.   Oliver Fromme was generous enough to allow anybody to use his program for free, and all he asked was for users to send him a postcard.  For this reason, he called his software "cardware" (as opposed to "shareware" or "freeware")

"HD-Copy" essentially has two functions:  (1) Format floppies in one of various capacity formats, and (2) save floppy images to digital files (saved in hard disks or other larger capacity storage media) for later re-creation of the floppy disks.  It can also clean the floppy boot sectors of viruses.  HD-Copy is so intuitive there is really no need for much explanation.  At the very bottom of this page is a screen shot of HD-Copy.  The image was not reduced to show the details clearly.

If you have ever wanted to send a contact a floppy by email, HD-copy is also your answer.  You can create an image of the floppy and email that image as a file attachment.  The size of the floppy image file is directly proportionate to the contents of the floppy.  Naturally, your contact will need a copy of the HD-Copy program to read that image and write it back to one of his own floppy disk.

So what's negative about this software?  Not much, except that it requires a legacy floppy drive (HD-Copy will not work with USB floppy drives).  And there is not much space to type the full path of the floppy image file for saving and reading them (more on this later).   

But hey... Mr. Fromme is not charging anything for it's usage so we have no real grounds to be demanding in anyway.  HD-Copy is a great piece of software that, like the floppy itself, refuses to die.  Once you use it, you can't really live without it specially if you are in the business of setting up and maintaining PC's.

A brief explanation of the important menu options are below:

If you have a mouse driver installed in a DOS command window, you can use the mouse to select the options.  Otherwise, pressing the corresponding key (as the red letter in the menu choices) will execute the command (i.e., the "r" key for "Read").  You can also press the up-down arrow keys on the keyboard to select the menu option, and then press the [Enter] key.  The most important menu options are:

Read = read the complete contents of the floppy disk into memory.
Write = write the complete contents of the memory into a floppy disk
Verify Destination = compares the contents in memory with the contents of the floppy destination
Verify source = compares the contents in memory with the floppy source
Format Destination = format the floppy disk designated as destination (This will bring you to another menu with all the various capacity formats to choose from.)
Put to File = Save the contents in memory to a file in another storage media (typically the hard disk).  The saved file (the ".img" extension is automatically appended)  is an "image" of the floppy.  You will need to type in the filename.
Get from File = Read the contents of a file (floppy image) into memory. You will need to type in the filename.

I won't bother to explain the other options as they are all really self-explanatory.  But a comment about the Put to File and Get from File may be necessary.

The Put and Get commands will require you to input the filename, but there is not enough space to input the complete path of the file.  The file will normally be saved or read from the "default" directory at the time you launch (run) HD-Copy.   (It would usually be the folder in which the HD-Copy program is located.)  This can be frustrating at times because it is impossible to specify a long  path once HD-Copy is already running in a DOS window. 

One suggestion we have is to create a shortcut (for HD-Copy.exe)
and edit the shortcut (right click it and then select "Properties") by typing the complete path to the program itself and deleting the specified default "Working" directory of that shortcut. (see below's screen shot of the sample shortcut's Properties window.)

Without a specified default working directory, a shortcut will automatically force the program (HD-Copy.exe in this example) to  use the directory where the shortcut is currently located when it was double-clicked. This tip on shortcut default path, by the way, should work on almost any executable/program in Windows.

You can copy such a shortcut into any folder so that when you double click that shortcut, the HD-Copy will use that folder as it's default "working" directory.  We keep all our floppy images in a folder called "Floppies" and have a copy of HD-Copy.exe and the edited shortcut for it in that directory.  We also have a text file called "index.txt" with a list of the various floppy image files (filenames) and a brief explanation on what each  floppy is all about.  Whenever we need to Get or Put a HD-Copy file in another folder, we simply copy the shortcut into that folder and run HD-Copy by double clicking on that shortcut. When HD-Copy runs, we only need to type the filename without any paths since the path (folder) we want to use has been pre-determined.

Personally, I also keep my most important boot floppy images and a copy of the HD-Copy.exe program in my USB memory stick which I carry around as a necklace where ever I go.  I feel comfortable that I can recreate almost any boot floppy that I may need "on the fly." 

Of course, we also have the "Floppy" folder saved in a CD-R for an indestructible backup of all our invaluable boot floppies.

Our most sincere thanks to Mr. Oliver Fromme.