SheppyWare

ImageMaker lets you create DiskCopy 4.2, DiskCopy 6, Universal Disk Image, ProDOS order, and "raw" disk image files on your Apple IIgs computer. These images contain all the data on the Apple II disk of your choice -- from floppies to hard disks to RAM disks -- and can be copied to a Macintosh or PC for use in Apple II emulators, such as Bernie ][ The Rescue on the Mac or Sweet16 under BeOS.

You can also choose whether or not to set the Macintosh file type information. This can be useful if you're going to be using the file on a Macintosh, but can be a problem if you need to use it from ProDOS 8 programs, since adding Macintosh file type information adds a resource fork, making the file unusable in ProDOS 8.

You can speed up making images of large numbers of disks with the new "Batch mode" in which you pop disks in and they'll get imaged and spit back out. You can even make disk images of disks with bad blocks! ImageMaker also supports a fully backward-compatible enhancement to the Universal Disk Image format, in which any bad blocks will be recorded in a list of bad blocks attached to the file.

ImageMaker is an incredibly useful tool for moving data to Macintosh computers, creating disk images for use in emulators, or for doing thorough backups.

One useful thing you can do with ImageMaker, if your Apple IIgs is on an AppleTalk network: use ImageMaker to create a disk image of a damaged HFS partition on your Apple IIgs hard disk, saving the image on a Macintosh. Then you can use disk repair software on the Macintosh to repair the damaged partition on the disk image. Then you can use DiskMaker to restore the image back to your IIgs. This is a handy way to fix damaged HFS partitions you use on your IIgs!