Creating and mounting .img files on Windows

Today I needed to create a blank .img (raw disk) file, format it with a filesystem, mount that filesystem, and put a file on it. The reason for this was absolute laziness: I didn’t want to put a file on a flash drive and then go to my basement to plug it in to a server. Instead, I wanted to use the Dell iDRAC Virtual Media option to mount a disk with the necessary file. So, how does one create such a disk file?

The option I chose was ImDisk. It’s free software that has apparently been around for quite a while, and it still works in Windows 11. It creates a Control Panel item (classic!) with a very old-school interface for creating and mounting disk images. Once created and mounted, I simply used the Windows disk formatter and then Explorer to get the necessary file into the virtual disk. Then, after unmounting, I connected the disk through iDRAC’s Virtual Media options and transferred the file successfully to the server!