Tips & Techniques

Disk Manager for D1

When you download designs, they might be zipped up. So, first unzip them. (See #20 under "other tips" on my website for these instructions.) They might be in HUS or VIP format. That's great, but it still doesn't mean that you can just put them on a floppy that way.

You must create a disk using Disk Manager and this program will convert those designs to SHV and add other files so that the machine can not only understand the stitches for that design, but so that the machine can also put the picture of that design on the display screen.

Viking's Customizing Plus or the new 3D Embroidery Studio include Disk Manager as part of the system.

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I only put designs on the disk that I really intend to stitch out at that time. Then when I want different designs to stitch out, I clean off the disk and put new designs on it. This way, I don't have a bunch of floppies all over the place that I may never use again. After all, the designs are still on my hard drive and I always keep them organized in categories.

I also make backup CDs of my organized designs (keeping my original floppies in file in the closet). When I purchase a new set or two, then I make new CDs. They're cheap and it's easy to do. #34 under "other tips" on my website has some instructions for doing that with the program I have.

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Open the "Disk Manager" program first. Insert a blank floppy disk.

Click on "open or view" on the taskbar and find the folder that holds the designs you want to put on the disk. Click on each one and it will appear on the Disk Manager screen.

I don't like to put any more than 12 in each menu because the pictures on the screen become too small when you want to read the disk in the machine. When I have 12 chosen and still want more, then I click on Menu 2 and add some more in that menu. Then Menu 3 and 4.

When you have chosen all that you want to stitch out, you click on "write to disk". It's on the toolbar and looks like a floppy disk. The first one is "read disk" and the second is "write to disk".

When it writes to the disk, it will automatically change those designs into the SHV format and will have 4 menus.

Let's look at this disk in the "explorer" so you can see what the disk will look like.

Right click on start, click on, explore. This opens the explorer. With the disk inserted in the drive, click on the floppy A driveto read that disk. This is what you will see on both the left and right side of the screen.

Menu_01

Menu_02

Menu_03

Menu_04

Menu_SEL.PHV

If click on Menu 1 on the left side, it will show each design in that menu and they will be named like this:

DES01_01.SHV

Des01_02.SHV

Des01_03.SHV

MENU_01.MHV

If you click on menu 2, it will look the same except it will say DES02_01.SHV to show it's menu 2 now but design #1 on THAT menu.

If you have some designs on a disk and you still want them, then read the disk first and those designs will appear on the screen. Then click on open or view and find the folder that holds the designs and choose other designs you want to add.

When done, click on write to disk and it will erase the disk and then add everything that is on that disk manager screen.