Reference
Akai disk images explained: .hds, .hda, .img, .hfe and .iso
A disk image is a whole disk saved as one file. The bit after the dot tells you what kind of disk it is pretending to be. Here is which one you need.
Start here
Which one do I need?
- Using the Drum Chopper Pi? None of them. The Pi is the disk. See the setup guide.
- Got a ZuluSCSI or BlueSCSI? You want
.hdsor.hda. - Got a Gotek? You want
.img, or.hfeif your Gotek runs HxC firmware. - Got a sample CD? That is an
.iso.
.hds and .hda
Hard drive in a file
A whole Akai hard drive saved as one file — all the programs and samples, laid out the way the sampler expects.
.hds and .hda hold the same thing. The only difference is the name, because ZuluSCSI and BlueSCSI work out what to pretend to be from the filename. Drum Chopper names it correctly for you.
Drum Chopper makes these. An Akai disk is made of 60 MB chunks, so a bigger disk is several of them rather than one large space.
One thing that catches people out: renaming a floppy file to .hda does not turn it into a hard drive. The sampler will see it and refuse it.
.img and .hfe
Floppy disk in a file
A copy of a single floppy disk. Gotek drives read these off a USB stick. If your sampler has no SCSI — an S900, an S950, some early S1000s — this is the way in.
.img is the plain version. .hfe is a more detailed version that some Gotek firmware prefers, and it copes with awkward disks that .img cannot.
Where we are today: Drum Chopper opens Akai floppy files and lets you add, rename and delete things inside them, but it cannot yet make a brand new one from scratch. For Ensoniq, it can.
.iso
CD in a file
A copy of a sample CD. If your sampler has a SCSI CD drive it can read one of these directly, and a SCSI emulator can pretend to be the CD drive.
Drum Chopper opens these so you can pull sounds off an old sample CD. It does not make them.
Worth knowing
The name can lie
Anyone can rename a file. Drum Chopper looks inside a disk image to work out what it really is, so it will open one that somebody named wrongly — and it will refuse one that is named right but damaged inside.
If a file will not open, that is usually why. Send it to us and we will tell you what is in it.