inspect-disk

name: inspect-disk description: Inspect or modify the Windows 95 disk image offline with mtools — no QEMU, no Electron, no boot. Use when checking what's on the C: drive, extracting/reading files from the image, copying files into it, or verifying image contents after a change.

Inspecting windows95.img without booting it

images/windows95.img is a 1 GB raw MBR disk with a single FAT32 (0x0C) partition starting at sector 63. mtools (installed via Homebrew) can read and write it directly — the only trick is the partition byte offset:

63 sectors × 512 bytes = 32256

Every command takes the same image spec: -i images/windows95.img@@32256 ::

Read operations (always safe)

Long filenames work (PROGRA~1 ↔ Program Files); quote paths with spaces. Paths use ::/ as the root of C:.

Hidden files need -a. Plain mdir silently skips hidden/system files (BOOTLOG.TXT, SYSTEM.DA0, ShellIconCache, ie5bak.DAT, …). Existence checks must use mdir -a, or you'll wrongly conclude a file isn't there.

Check the image isn't in use first. A running Electron or QEMU session holds the image open and writes to it lazily (Win95's VCACHE flushes on its own schedule):

lsof images/windows95.img   # must come back empty

A copy taken while the VM runs will have FAT inconsistencies (directory entries written, FAT not yet flushed). To repair a copy:

DEV=$(hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -nomount copy.img | head -1 | awk '{print $1}')
fsck_msdos -y "${DEV}s1"
hdiutil detach "$DEV"

Write operations (read the warnings first)

mdel/mdeltree fail on read-only/hidden/system files — run mattrib first. Note that bulk offline cleanup is currently discouraged: offline modification worsens v86 cold-boot reliability. Prefer doing cleanup inside Windows; see "Slimming the image" in docs/qemu.md.

Warning 1: never write while a VM holds the image

If Electron/v86 or QEMU is running against the image, offline writes race the guest's own writes and corrupt the FAT. Check first:

pgrep -fl "windows95.*electron|qemu.*windows95"

Warning 2: any offline write must be verified with the in-app probe

QEMU and v86 exercise different boot paths (different hardware → different driver init), and offline modification can break v86 cold boot while QEMU still boots fine ("Invalid VxD dynamic link call" — see "VXDLINK: flake vs. real bug" in the probe-win95 skill). Verify with tools/probe-boot.sh, not just yarn run qemu. In particular, never zero free space via the mcopy-a-giant-zero-file trick — that breaks v86 cold boot deterministically; use tools/zero-free-clusters.py if you must zero free space at all.

Warning 3: saved states cache the old disk

images/default-state.bin and ~/Library/Application Support/windows95/state-v*.bin contain Win95's RAM, including VCACHE/FAT caches that reference the disk as it was when the state was saved. Modifying the disk offline and then resuming a saved state = filesystem corruption.

After any offline write:

rm -f "$HOME/Library/Application Support/windows95/"state-v*.bin

…so the next boot is fresh (or from default-state.bin, which boots from disk early enough to be safe only if the files you touched weren't open at state-save time — when in doubt, do a full fresh boot and re-save).

Alternative: mount in Finder

hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage -readonly images/windows95.img
# … browse /Volumes/WIN95 …
hdiutil detach /Volumes/WIN95

Read-only is deliberate; use mtools for writes so you control exactly what changes.

Worktree note

images/ is gitignored — in a fresh worktree there is no image to inspect. See "Running from a git worktree" in the probe-win95 skill for the clone-from-main-checkout snippet.

Why not QEMU/v86?

Booting to inspect the disk takes ~40s+ per round trip (see probe-win95) and every boot mutates the image (registry, swap, SCANDISK.LOG). mtools is instant and, for read operations, leaves the image bit-identical — which matters when you're trying to diff or bisect image changes.