The IMA file format is an archive format

Archive format

An archive format is the file format of an archive file. The archive format is determined by the file archiver. Some archive formats are well-defined by their authors and have become conventions supported by multiple vendors and/or open-source communities....

 used for creating a disk image

Disk image

A disk image is a single file or storage device containing the complete contents and structure representing a data storage medium or device, such as a hard drive, tape drive, floppy disk, CD/DVD/BD, or USB flash drive, although an image of an optical disc may be referred to as an optical disc image...

 of floppy disks. This allows for digital storage, transmission, and replication of floppy disks. Files created using this format typically use the ".IMA" file extension.

Format details

An .IMA file contains a raw dump

Dump

Dump generally refers to a place for disposal of domestic waste. See articles at midden and landfill.-Other uses:The word has other uses alone or in combination and may refer to:* Dump , a Unix program for backing up file systems...

 of the content of a disk. This format is not compatible with the Disk Copy Fast

Disk Copy Fast

Disk Copy Fast is a file archiver software utility that creates disk images of floppy disks. It also refers to the file format used to encode the disk image files created...

 format but is supported by multiple software vendors, and is the same format as VFD. Some files with the extension IMG

IMG (file format)

The IMG file format is one of the following files:# A CD or DVD image file, essentially equivalent to an ISO file. On such a file, simply changing the extension from IMG to ISO can make it usable as the latter by most programs....

 are in the same format, but this extension is used for a variety of incompatible formats too.

Support and development

The IMA file format is currently supported by WinImage

WinImage

WinImage is a disk imaging application for Microsoft Windows created by Gilles Vollant Software. Its features include creating, reading and editing disk images and also opening VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC hard disk images...

 and is used by Nero Burning ROM

Nero Burning ROM

Nero Multimedia Suite is a popular software suite for Microsoft Windows by Nero AG . Version 10 of this product was released in April 2010.- Included products :The following applications are included in Nero 11 :Disc authoring...

 and Microsoft Virtual Machine/Microsoft Virtual Server

Microsoft Virtual Server

Microsoft Virtual Server is a virtualization solution that facilitates the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Originally developed by Connectix, it was acquired by Microsoft prior to release...

. Some newer software supports a gzip

Gzip

Gzip is any of several software applications used for file compression and decompression. The term usually refers to the GNU Project's implementation, "gzip" standing for GNU zip. It is based on the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of Lempel-Ziv and Huffman coding...

ped version of the format, called .IMZ, such as WinImage

WinImage

WinImage is a disk imaging application for Microsoft Windows created by Gilles Vollant Software. Its features include creating, reading and editing disk images and also opening VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC hard disk images...

.

Use

IMA files are used for:

• Digital storage, transmission, and replication of floppy disks.
• Mounting virtual floppy disk volumes.
• Transferring bootable volume properties to CDROM and DVD volumes to make bootable CDROMs/DVDs.