Apple 2300 Series manual Making software disks, Why make software disks?, What is a disk image?

Making software disks

This section describes how to create floppy disks of the software that comes on your computer. You can make floppy disks if you have the PowerBook Duo Floppy Adapter or the PowerBook Duo MiniDock and an external floppy disk drive, or the PowerBook Duo Dock Plus.

Why make software disks?

Your Macintosh PowerBook computer comes with different kinds of software installed. System software is the set of programs and other files that your computer uses to start itself up, keep track of your files, and run application programs. When you turn on your computer, it looks for a disk that contains the system software. System software is always in a folder called the System Folder.

Other included software gives you added functionality on your computer, such as hard disk password protection and file synchronization.

You need to make a copy of this software for safekeeping, in case you ever need to reinstall the software on your computer. The disks you need to install and reinstall software from are called installer disks. You use the Floppy Disk Maker application program to create your software installer disks.

What is a disk image?

A disk image is a discrete electronic representation of an individual disk. The Disk Images folder in the Floppy Disk Maker folder (inside the Utilities folder) on your hard disk contains the disk images you need to create installer disks for both your system software and the other software that comes on the hard disk. When you use Floppy Disk Maker, it copies the disk images onto floppy disks. When you are finished making a set of disks with Floppy Disk Maker, you’ll have a set of installer disks and will be able to reinstall the software that comes on your computer.

Installing and Using Application Programs 57