virtual cd. How to create and use a virtual drive in Windows

In this section of the catalog we present you best programs to work with disks. You can download them to your PC right now and it's completely free. The utilities are checked for the absence of virus code, they are safe to use and feature-rich.

Daemon Tools Lite

Despite the rather low weight, the utility has great power and a wide range of tools. With Daemon Tools Lite you can play literally all possible disk images (B5T, BWT, ISO, etc.) made by one of the copy programs. One of the features of the software is that it allows you not to use the original disc every time.

In addition, Daemon Tools Lite will allow you to run pirated copies. The program has several special modes that are necessary for the normal operation of copies of discs with an advanced level of protection (a useful option for discs with modern toys).

Among the advantages of the utility, it is necessary to highlight a simple and intuitive interface, multilingualism, and functionality. With it, you will be able to use any image of CD and DVD discs as if they were written on a disc that is on the CD-ROM itself.


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Alcohol 120%

Another free and useful utility. Alcohol 120% will allow you to copy to protected and unprotected discs, burn to CD and DVD. You will be able to create exact images with a disk, and then load them into virtual drives without using physical media.

The list of advantages of the program includes support for virtually all formats of CD and DVD discs, as well as modern formats such as ATAPI SCSI. You can create up to 6 virtual drives, all of which will support disk imaging at 200x speed. The list of possible disc formats is very extensive (CUE, CCD, MDS and many others). There are several custom image file extensions. You can create up to 31 disc images for free.

A virtual disk image can be extremely necessary for storing very important information. Thanks to the creation of ISO images, any game can be played without a real disc. It is enough to create an emulated disk, and then mount it in the drive and you can enjoy the information recorded on it. Today there are dozens of programs from developers around the world. Some of them you can buy, others are distributed free of charge. Among such a multitude, it is difficult for an inexperienced user to find a really useful product. let's consider best options, which offer a software manufacturer for the production of a disk image.

Option 1: CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a powerful utility that works with any discs and images. Capable of writing, overwriting, erasing data on a disk. It is a free product that has proven itself well among users. Allows you to create any boot disks, save multimedia files to your hard drive. CDBurnerXP easily creates a handy virtual disk with *.iso extension. Works with multisession discs in all operating systems windows (7,8,10). To create a virtual ISO image, the user needs to follow 3 simple steps:

Option 2: ImgBurn

In terms of ease of use and intuitive interface, this free program can be called one of the most convenient. However, even on the official website, you will not find a clean executable. Unwanted software is also hidden in the standard installer package.

If you are not jarred by this fact or if there is a powerful antivirus, feel free to take this application and use it. By the way, no suspicious activity was detected in Windows 10, but you should still be careful. Developer website: www.imgburn.com.
ImgBurn- functional program with a simple interface. With it, you can create boot disk to install the Windows 7 operating shell. When downloaded by default, the program is downloaded to English language, but, if desired, you can always download the crack file from an official source, and then paste the file with the Russian language into the Language folder.

The application can create virtual images from disks, from files. Creating an image from a file is very simple: just click on the corresponding icon and add files and directories to create an image.

Option 3: ISO Workshop

ISO Workshop is another option for creating an ISO image. Simple interface, works with *. cue. Working with files of this format allows you to record images of albums in uncompressed form.

The main function of ISO Workshop can be considered the ability to record an image, as well as extract from it. The program allows you to check disks for errors, as well as erase them. Link to the official resource: http://www.glorylogic.com/iso-workshop.html .

It is enough to select "Convert" and the necessary window will open in front of you

Option 4: Ashampoo Burning Studio

A convenient program with an attractive interface is absolutely free. Supports a number of formats in addition to the well-known ISO. Works with any disc. Creating emulated drives is just one of the functions of Ashampoo Burning Studio. Using this software, you can easily overwrite discs several times, copy any discs. For those who need to create a virtual disk with files, you should follow the following recommendations:

Option 5: Ultra ISO

It is difficult to analyze utilities without such a giant as UltraISO. The program belongs to the paid representatives of the family of drive emulators. Works with a large number of files, creates virtual discs and burns images to a real optical disc.

CD / DVD-ROMs are among the most popular external storage media, but working with them in practice is not always convenient, and there are many reasons for this. These disks must be inserted into the drive and data exchange with them is noticeably slower than with hard drive. As a result, running the program from the CD will take noticeably more time. CD / DVD-disks stop being read if bad sectors or a lot of scratches appear on them, and this will happen sooner or later during their active use. For mobile users, another difficulty arises - when going on a business trip, they have to take with them the entire set of disks that may be required for work, which is also unpleasant, since it increases the size of luggage. You can avoid such problems by copying information from CDs to a hard drive, but this option It won't work for every program. For example, discs with games, licensed databases, tutorials, audio discs, etc. when copying them to a hard drive, they often refuse to work. In such cases, you will have to take a different path - create virtual CD / DVD drives on your computer and place images of frequently used disks in them. Technically, this involves performing two operations. First you need to create the necessary disk image files (that is, virtual CDs) - this can be done using programs for burning and copying CD-DVDs (such as, for example, Nero Burning ROM) and save these images to your hard drive. And then you will have to use a special virtual drive emulator program, with which you will need to create the required number of virtual CD / DVD drives and connect a prepared disk image in each of them. As a result, it will be possible to work with virtual CDs in the same way as with real ones. Moreover, it will be much faster and more reliable. Why? Everything is very simple. On the one hand, access to information will be accelerated, since hard drive it will read much faster than from a CD, and you don't have to insert a real disk into a physical drive to run a virtual disk. On the other hand, the probability of losing valuable data as a result of disc failure will decrease, because the CD / DVD discs themselves are not inserted into the drive, and therefore their surface does not wear out. Moreover, it will be possible to work with several disks at the same time.

DAEMON Tools 4.30.0305

Developer: DT Soft Ltd.
Distribution size: DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced and DAEMON Tools Pro Standard - 11 MB; DAEMON Tools Lite - 7.4 Mb
Spreading: shareware DAEMON Tools is one of the most attractive virtual drive emulation solutions in terms of functionality. This package is available in three editions: DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced, DAEMON Tools Pro Standard and DAEMON Tools Lite. The DAEMON Tools Lite edition has the most modest features - it does not have a graphical interface (access is made through the system tray) and allows you to create up to four virtual drives and mount images on them. Two other versions already have a convenient graphical interface and provide the creation of 16 to 32 virtual SCSI devices, and DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced can also emulate two virtual IDE devices, which is important for connecting part of copy-protected CD / DVD disks. As for the images themselves, all three solutions provide for the creation of images from CDs, and not only from ordinary ones (the supported formats are Audio CD, Video CD, Mixed Mode CD, CD-Extra, Video CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio ), but also copy-protected ones, including SafeDisc, SecuROM, LaserLock, RMPS, Hide CD-R, CD/DVD-Cops, ProtectCD, StarForce, and Tages. At the same time, almost any image file format is supported (B5T, B6T, BWT, CCD, CDI, CUE, ISO, MDS, NRG, PDI, ISZ). If desired, the images are easy to protect with a password. The Pro versions also provide image editing, which allows you to add files to the image, as well as replace them in it and delete them. Working with images is implemented very conveniently - you can add them to the collection by specifying them manually or by selecting from the list found during automatic search (images created in the program itself are added to the collection automatically), and in the collection itself you can place images in subdirectories (this is more convenient for further orientation). When creating images, their compression is provided, which will be very useful if there are a large number of images on the disk, however, only MDS images can be compressed - images in other formats will first have to be converted to MDS format (only possible in DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced). Demo versions of the program (there is a Russian-language localization) are fully functional and operational for 20 days. The cost of commercial versions is different - for DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced it is 39.90 euros, for DAEMON Tools Pro Standard - 16.90 euros, and for DAEMON Tools Lite - 14.90 euros. At the same time, the version of DAEMON Tools Lite for non-commercial use is free. Since the DAEMON Tools Lite utility is the simplest in terms of application, we will start with it. It does not have a graphical interface, so all operations in this utility are carried out through the system tray. Connecting virtual drives in DAEMON Tools Lite is as easy as shelling pears. First you will need to install the required number of virtual devices - click right click on the program icon in the system tray, select the Virtual CD / DVD-ROM command and specify the required number of drives.

And then sequentially mount the virtual disk for each of the drives, simply specifying the corresponding image files on the hard disk for them (the command Virtual CD / DVD-ROM> "Drive ..."> "Mount image"). To remove an image from a virtual drive, you will need the Unmount Image command.

The technology of working with DAEMON Tools Pro is somewhat more complicated. The window of this utility is implemented in the form of three panels - the information panel and two windows: the image window and the drive window. The Images window is designed to perform various operations on images, while the Drives window allows you to manage physical and virtual CD/DVD devices.

The first step in DAEMON Tools Pro is to create a collection of images. If the images were created earlier and you have not yet managed to forget in which particular folder on the disk they are located, then you need to click on the "Add images" button and immediately place them in the collection. If you do not remember where they are, you will have to use the automatic search mode (the "Search Images" button).

If there are no images on the disk yet, then you need to create them. To do this, insert the coveted disc into the CD / DVD-ROM, click on the "Create Image" button, select the appropriate physical drive (it is clear if there are several drives) and, if necessary, change the settings for reading the disc on the "Drive" tab. And then on the "Image Catalog" tab, enter the name of the image and indicate the output format, after which they click on the "Start" button and after a couple of minutes they get the desired image.

After the collection is filled with images in one way or another, the required number of virtual drives is installed by clicking the "Add SCSI Virtual Drive" button the corresponding number of times - the connected drives appear in the program's virtual drives window. It should be noted that one virtual drive is created automatically during the installation of the program.

Then, a virtual image is installed on each of the virtual CD/DVD devices. To perform such an installation, activate the first image and use the "Mount image" command from the context menu, followed by specifying the desired virtual drive. After that, a similar operation will need to be carried out with all other images. If you need to remove an image from a virtual drive, use the "Unmount" command from the context menu.

Alcohol 120% 1.9.8.7612 and Alcohol 52% 1.9.8.7612

Developer: Alcohol Software
Distribution size: Alcohol 120% - 12.3 Mb, Alcohol 52% - 11.5 Mb
Spreading: Shareware Programs Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% are one of the most popular solutions for creating virtual CD/DVD drives. Alcohol 120% includes all the features of Alcohol 52% and additionally allows you to burn CDs and DVDs from image files or on the fly from source CDs. It is possible to record to several drives at the same time. With regard to emulation of virtual drives, the capabilities of the programs are identical. With their help, it is easy to connect up to 31 virtual drives on a computer and mount virtual CDs on them in almost any image file format. Source images are added in the image search mode or automatically - the latter if they are created in the Alcohol environment. Support for many CD formats (CD-DA, CD+G, CD-ROM, CD-XA, Video CD, Photo CD, Mixed Mode, Multi-session CD, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video and DVD-Audio) and a variety of protection systems, including SafeDisc 2/3/4, SecuROM NEW 4/5/7, LaserLock, Starforce 1/2/3/4, VOB ProtectCD V5. When emulating, you can ignore the type of media, the physical signature of the disc being written (RMPS), the presence of bad sectors, etc. The demo version of the program (there is a Russian-language localization) is operational for 15 days and has a limit on the number of virtual devices created (there can be only six of them). The cost of the commercial version of Alcohol 120% is $ 50, Alcohol 52% - $ 27. In addition, there is also a completely free version Alcohol 52% FE 1.9.5.4, which allows you to create up to six virtual devices. The Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% windows are implemented as one vertical and two horizontal panels. The vertical panel is located on the left side of the main program window and is an operations panel designed to quick start main components of the program. The horizontal panels located on the right side of the main program window are the working windows of the database browser that provide management of images, virtual drives, and physical CD/DVD devices.

Emulating virtual CD / DVD drives in Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% requires three steps. At the first, a collection of images is formed. If the images already exist, then they can be connected directly by simply right-clicking in a free area of ​​the browser window, calling the "Add images" command from the context menu and specifying the necessary images. Well, if you don't remember exactly where the images are located on the disk, then you can use the search for images ("Search for images" operation in the "Basic operations" group), and only then connect the images.

If the image files do not exist on disk, they will have to be created. It is not difficult to do this in Alcohol 120% (or Alcohol 52%). To do this, just activate the "Create images" operation, select a physical drive (only if there are several drives), determine the data type and, if necessary, adjust the disk reading settings, and on the next screen enter the image name and click the "Start" button.

After the collection of images is formed, virtual drives are connected - the operation " Virtual Disk" from the "Settings" group, after launching which you will need to determine the required number of virtual devices. You can also enable / disable the checkboxes "Remount images on system reboot" and "Mount image on Device 0 by double-clicking". disks in their virtual drives after restarting or shutting down the computer. Enabling the second one will allow you to mount the image file by double-clicking on it into the first free virtual drive. After that, you will also need to activate the "File Associations" subsection and mark those image file extensions that are supposed to be mounted The result of these manipulations will be the appearance in the lower right subwindow of the program, in addition to physical CD / DVD devices, a list of virtual drives that have appeared.By the way, it is immediately worth noting that one virtual drive can be created already when installing the program, unless , you n Do not uncheck the corresponding checkbox during installation.

Well, now it remains only to mount virtual CDs on virtual devices using the "Mount to device" command from the context menu. You can mount the image faster - just by double-clicking on it, however, this is only on the condition that the "Mount image to Device 0 on double-click" checkbox was not disabled when connecting virtual drives. To remove an image from a virtual drive, use the "Unmount Image" command.

Virtual CD 9.3.0.1

Developer: H+H Software GmbH
Distribution size: 56.4 MB
Spreading: shareware Virtual CD is one of the most feature-rich (but also the most difficult to learn) solutions for emulating virtual CD / DVD-ROM devices, managing virtual CDs and organizing network access to them. The program allows you to create up to 23 virtual drives and connect image files to them in a fairly wide range of formats. These images can be created directly in the Virtual CD environment, connected according to the results of an automatic search, or directly manually. Working with collections of virtual CDs is implemented in the program, taking into account the fact that their number may be large - therefore, images can be categorized, sorted, grouped, searched in the library, etc. When creating images (supported formats are CD-ROM, DVD, Video CD, Super Video CD, Photo CD, Audio CD, CD-Text, CD-Extra, Mixed Mode CDs), compression is possible, and very effective. In addition, images can be converted to VC4 format and, if necessary, protected with a password. Image editing is also provided, in which it is easy to add new files or delete unnecessary ones - this function can be useful not only when using image files on virtual drives, but also in the process of testing them before burning them to a real CD. The latter is also implemented in Virtual CD, in addition, the program can directly copy data from disk to disk and delete data from rewritable CD / DVD. The demo version of the program (there is no Russian localization) is fully functional and operational for 30 days, the cost of the commercial version is $ 39.95. Virtual CD is a combination of two interface modules - Toolbox and CD Management (both modules are called from the system tray, and Toolbox can also be launched via the start menu). The Toolbox module provides direct access to all the main functions of the program.

The CD Management module provides virtual CD and image management.

In Virtual CD, it is more difficult to deal with the options responsible for creating a collection, since they are scattered across different modules, and the total number of various settings is large. If we are talking about adding existing image files to the collection, then this can be done both through the Toolbox module and through the CD Management module. In the first case, open the Main Tasks in Virtual CD tab and launch the Find Virtual CDs automatic image search function.

In the second, the Add command is called from the context menu and specific images from the folder are specified.

You can also add a new virtual drive in two ways - using the Add/Remove Virtual Drives command, activating it from the system tray, or in the CD Management module, by calling the Drive Editor command from the context menu. In both cases, a dialog box for selecting devices opens, where you should enable additional drives. By the way, if no more than four drives are required, then these operations will not have to be carried out, since by default the program automatically adds four virtual drives to the system during its installation.

Mounting virtual CDs is easier, since it is done by simply dragging the image onto the drive in the CD Management window, or by placing a virtual CD on the drive via the system tray. The Eject command is responsible for removing an image from a virtual drive.

It should be noted that many operations in Virtual CD require sequential opening of many windows (and this slows down the process) - you can speed up the work by assigning a number of actions to hot keys, as well as by actively using system tray commands that duplicate the basic operations of the Toolbox and CD Management modules.

DAEMON Tools is the best program for creating virtual disks and mounting (emulating) them, which significantly reduces disk space and allows you to create backups all necessary files. The main difference between this program and many others similar is that the developers of the utility put the interests of their users much higher than everything else. This is evidenced by the constant updating of versions of the program, which is becoming more and more convenient to use and universal in application. The main advantages of the utility include:
- the ability to create images (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) as a file and mount them.
- the ability to replace the physical wear of all types of discs.
- convenient and clear interface will not make absolutely anyone use the program by all categories of users.
- allows you to use all possible image formats.
- provides the ability to copy boot disks, as well as the ability to protect saved files with a password, which will ensure complete security for storing the file.
In order to be able to use the program, you need to take the following steps.
First you need to download and install the program on Personal Computer:

After that, select the desired program components to use and determine the program installation folder. Installation will take a matter of minutes.

After installation, you need to run the program and select the image creation tab, after which a window will open in which you need to select the disk drive parameters, recording speed, and the location of the new disk image. Select the file for the image and its format. It is desirable to specify the maximum reading speed and, if necessary, you can specify a protection password.

At the end of the selection of parameters, you need to click on the start button and the image will be created automatically in the previously specified folder.
A fairly user-friendly interface and ease of use are the main advantages of this program, which is designed to greatly secure and expand the range of possibilities for your disk images up to 4 various units, which will replace the need to save disks and be afraid of their breakage.

Daemon Tools Lite is a CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive emulation tool, free program for reading and creating virtual images of laser optical discs. With Daemon Tools Lite, you can create up to 4 virtual CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives in your system and use them as usual optical drives, with the only difference that you need to insert electronic casts into them, images of optical storage media. Daemon Tools Lite is a great solution for a computer that does not have a laser drive. Install Daemon Tools Lite and you will be able to create *.iso, *.mdx and *.mds disk images, as well as mount images of *.iso, *.nrg, *.cue, *.vhd, *.ccd formats into a virtual drive, *.bwt, *.b5t, *.b6t, *.cdi, *.isz, *.dmg.

Reading images

Using a virtual disk image allows you to more reliably store information, because the disk image file cannot be scratched, and the reading speed from a virtual drive is several times higher than the reading speed of a conventional drive, moreover, when accessing a virtual drive, there is no noise at all that occurs when a laser disk rotates. It is also convenient to store information in the form of image files on disk, because it does not take up space on the shelves. Mounting disks is possible directly from the Explorer window, the program is built into it context menu when installing. Daemon Tools Lite implements copy protection bypass algorithms for Laserlock, CDCOPS, Protect CD, SafeDisc, Securom, StarForce and others, thanks to which you can emulate both regular and protected disks.

Screenshots of Daemon Tools Lite