Review: Sector - HFS Disk Image Tool for Mac Emulators

For most part when many setup an emulator they just see the HDD image as needed running the target system and the floppy images as means to get the operating system installed. There is one aspect of emulation that is next level on top of that where editing HDD or floppy images externally can be rather convenient. That area that has been well served in the dos/early windows area on Windows by WinImage a tool that largely had a different purpose when it was released and for early Mac emulation floppy and HDD images being handled by a now showing it age HFVExplorer.

Until now there really wasn’t much on the Mac side for dealing with the HFS images used by common classic mac emulators such as Mini vMac, Basilisk II, and SheepShaver other than perhaps some command line options. Released February 2026 a new tool for handling HFS disk images commonly contained in .img/.hda but does not support the encrypted formats such as .dmg or .NDIF. While those core emulators are supported there is also support of Blue SCSI, Zulu SCSI, and Floppy Emu.

Sector is rather feature packed with easy to use interface for transferring files in and out of disk images without damaging the resource forks, make new disk images, repair disk images, change creator type/creator codes, as well as set a folder on the disk image as blessed for being the chosen system folder.

Now taking all that into account i did my testing out all the features of Sector to see how well it works.

First off for testing my floppy images it took using the Applesauce client intended for the floppy imaging hardware of same name to convert tested DiskCopy 4.2 images to hfv. img files. HDD image wise while I don’t use the listed emulators regularly Sector was able to handle hdd images I use on the emulator Snow complete with support of images that got multiple partitions.

Floppy wise I had recently figured out how to make it possible to share a seemingly uncommon copy of BannerMania 1.1 that i had imaged ages ago. The disk image once converted to HFV .img file worked great.

Now back to the more interesting features starting out with basics with the ability to create new images. Now this feature is limited to working with Mini vMac, Basilisk II, and SheepShaver and will make images that is NOT compatible with any emulator that expects a full proper HDD image. Of course on launch it has a simple drag and drop window that comes up for easy loading of disk images.

Next is the HFS Check and Repair which can be handy for those times when the emulator is being odd considering how file systems can corrupt. My test HDD image kind of surprisingly already had issues present despite booting fine.

While these two features seem smaller they are rather important as being able to set blessed system folder is quite handy as well being able to correct creator type/creator codes. Both of these features worked as expected and should be handy for having both system 6 and system 7 on same single drive as well as transferring files in that may have already lost resource forks.

Now the ability to drag files in and out of disk images without corrupting resource forks is a really important thing considering how fragile they can be. My test used copying BannerMania 1.1 from the floppy image to the desktop then inserting it into the test hdd image. It worked perfectly with the application preserving the icon and still running properly.

Over all Sector is a solid new product that makes working with hdd and floppy images for classic mac emulators on Mac OS that is rather feature packed for how simple and easy to use it is.
For those who are into classic mac emulation on Mac OS this is a must and purchasable on AppStore for Mac for $12.99 CAD*.

*Price varies for different countries
United States: $9.99 USD
European Union (Eurozone): €9,99
United Kingdom: £9.99
Australia: $14.99 AUD