How to Create Empty Disk Image in Linux

Sometimes you may need to create empty disk image in Linux from an image file. In this article, we will look at how to create empty disk image in Linux.

How to Create Empty Disk Image in Linux

Here are the steps to create empty disk image in Linux. You will need to install hfsutils package for this purpose.

1. Install hfsutils

Open terminal and run the following command to install hfsutils.

$ sudo apt-get install hfsutils

2. Create Image File

Let us say your image is located at /home/file.img. Run the following command to create an image. Replace /home/file.img with path to your image file.

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/file.img bs=1 count=0 seek=1G

We have created disk with space for 1GB file. If you want to modify it, you may do so by updating the values for bs, count & seek options above. Here’s how they work.

3. Format Image

Run the following command to format the image.

$ sudo hformat -l File /home/file.img

4. Mount Image

Mount the image with the following commands.

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/file 
$ sudo mount -t hfs -o loop /home/file.img /mnt/file

5. Copy Files

You can copy your files into this newly mounted disk volume and unmount it when you are done.

$ sudo umount /mnt/file

That’s it. In this article, we have looked at how to easily create blank disk for file storage.

How to Create Empty Disk Image in Linux