HFV Explorer is a powerful tool that enables you to read Macintosh Disks, CDs and other media (such as ZIP Disks). Here we will use it to format a new disk image.
STEPS:
1) Start HFV Explorer
2) Go to the FILE menu and select FORMAT NEW DISK IMAGE.
3) In the VOLUME NAME box, write "Macintosh HD" (minus the quotes)
4) In the VOLUME SIZE box, select 20MB.
5) Click on the ">>" button. A box should pop up that would allow you to select a path for your disk image. Select where you want to put the image (preferably in the vMac application's folder). Save it as MacHD. Click on the SAVE button.
6) Click on the OK button in the first dialog box. You should now see a white drive in the left hand colum marked "Macintosh HD".
7) If you want to make it a bootable hard drive image then follow steps 8 - 14
8) Exit HFV Explorer
9) Start vMac. Hopefully you already have vMac set up. If you don't, see the help topic on how to do that.
10) When vMac is running, select the blue disk #2 icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen. (If you are in DirectX mode, click with your right mouse button on the screen and select insert disk 2.) If you recieve some error about there already being a disk image in the drive, drag the disk image's icon to the trash and repeat this step until it works.
11) In the dialog box that pops up, find the location of the disk image and select it. click OK.
12) Back in MacOS, open both disks (by clicking on the icons). Drag the System Folder from your boot disk to Macintosh HD. If the folder, when it's in Macintosh HD has a mac icon on it, you're good to go, otherwise, open the folder and close it. THe icon will then be there. The icon shows that the Mac recognizes that System Folder as bootable.
13) Go to SPECIAL... SHUTDOWN. When vMac beeps (if it got that far. vMac is really buggy. It might freeze. In that case, restart vMac and when it beeps THEN...) click on the disk #1 icon and select your disk image. If you did everything right, then you will see the famous "Welcome to Macintosh" screen. You will subsequently, however, see two Macintosh HD icons. The only way to keep that second icon from coming back is to edit the vmac.ini file, clearing the " DrivePath2 = " section (it should have a duplicate path for MacHD.dsk. It should only say "DrivePath2 = " [minus the quotations] and nothing else.)
14) Congradulations! You're finally done. Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?