ProfileEditDrives

Profile editor dialog page "Drives"

On this page you can setup the virtual drives DOSBox should emulate for the games running inside it. DOSBox can use physical drives, folders, image files or (if you are using a special CVS build) zip files as drives. Additionally DFendX allows to use zip files as drives even with the default DOSBox build (by extracting them before running DOSBox and automatically repacking them when DOSBox quits.)

You can add, edit and delete drives by clicking the buttons at the bottom of the page. Additionally you can also add drives by pressing Ins, edit the selected drive by pressing Return and delete drives by pressing Del.

You can also let DFendX try to create the needed connections from physical folders to DOSBox drives automatically by clicking the "Auto create" button. This should work fine for games only needing their game directories to run. For games needing drive images or CD drive connections DFendX will not be able to setup all needed drive records automatically.

• Additional automatically mount all available CDs
  If this option is activated, DFendX will also mount all not explicitely mounted CD drives when starting DOSBox.
• Disable mounting of drives after DOSBox start
  If this secure mode is activated, you (or any program inside DOSBox) will not be able to mount any further drives as soon as DOSBox is started. Whis this option activated you can be sure even a virus will not be able to damage any data you have not explicitely mounted in this dialog.

The "Edit drive" dialog

From this dialog you can choose the type of drive DOSBox should emulate and configurate it. From the "Type" dropdown box you can select on of the following drive types:

• Folder as hard disk
  This option allows you to mount any folder as a hard disk in DOSBox. (Advice: You should not mount the root folder of a drive as a DOSBox drive. Mounting a complete drive as a DOSBox drive will allow applications running inside DOSBox to change or delete any file on the real hard disk.)
• Folder as floppy
  This option allows you to mount a folder as a virtual floppy disk.
• CD-drive
  This options allows you to mount a real CD drive a a virtual CD drive inside DOSBox. You can select the CD drive via a fixed path (which should be the root folder of a real CD drive) or let DFendX automatically select the CD drive on DOSBox start via a file or a folder on the CD or via the name of the CD.
• Floppy image
  This options allows you to mount an image file as a virtual floppy drive. Via the "Create image file" on the right you can create a new floppy image from a real floppy disk or create a new, empty floppy disk image.
• ISO image
  This options allows you to mount an image file as a virtual CD drive. Via the "Create image file" on the right you can create a new ISO image from a real CD drive.
• Hard disk image
  This options allows you to mount an image file as a virtual hard disk. Via the "Create image file" on the right you can create new, empty hard disk images.
• DOSBox PhysFS (*)
  By selecting this option you can mount a zip file as a drive in DOSBox. DOSBox will make a drive from a zip file and a folder. It will read from the zip file and perform all write operations to the given folder (the zip file is read only). Wehn DOSBox terminates the content of the folder can optionally be added to the zip file.
• Zip file
  By selecting this option you can mount a zip file as a drive in DOSBox without using the DOSBox PhysFS support (which is not available in all DOSBox versions). DFendX will extract the content of the zip file to the given folder, mount this folder as a drive in DOSBox, run DOSBox, waits for DOSBox to terminate and then optionally repack to folder content to the zip file.

The option marked with (*) is only available if the corresponding DOSBox CVS feature is enabled on the DOSBox CVS features page of the program options dialog. The official DOSBox 0.73 build delivered with DFendX does not support this mount type and does not support the secure mode.

Via the "Drive letter" dropdown box you can choose which drive letter DOSBox should use for the mounted folder or image. When mounting a floppy or hard disk image you can also choose a number from 0 to 3 instead of a drive letter. Choosing one of this numbers will connect to image to the internal floppy / hard disk controller instead of connecting it to a drive letter. By doing this the drive will also stay available when booting a custom operation system inside DOSBox.

See also:

Profile editor dialog