emulation. The trouble with the approach below of just using raw data on a track sector basis is that now you have created a file that can only be used with an emulator that understands the physical format and OS access for the computer system you are emulating. My earlier point of separating the data and the format information allows a single file (that would not be much bigger that the one described below) to contain multiple platform specific files that can be "read" by a simple utility that does not require any knowledge of the OS or the platform. Hi Steve You seem to be assuming that the particular disk you are archiving has a file structure. This is not always the case. Dwight