What is a good virtual drive?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I've got a question for all you technical folk.

Which virtual drive is best?


I usually have some four or five games which I play most of the time. And I watch or burn the odd DVD. All this swapping of discs, plus the need to have them within reach, is tiresome. I know there are such things as a virtual drive (?) that use a part of your hard drive as a virtual disc drive. Which would be a good one? I don't need any copy protection overrides or anything fancy, just a means to skip the tedium of having to find and swap disks every time I want to play a quick game.

thanks.

[Beskar]

You can get a virtual drive from Daemon tools (google search it), what you do is copy your cd's and dvd's onto your computer as an ISO and you load these onto your virtual drive.

[pevergreen]

I like powerISO

Easy to use, free etc

I use it and Daemon Tools Lite, as some stuff only wants to go through that :(

[Raz]

Daemon Tools Lite. However, I am unsure as whether or not it works on a 64-bit system.
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/downloads

If Daemon Tools Lite doesn't install correctly on your system, I know for certain that Alcohol-Soft works.

Try Alcohol 52% (free version, not the trial version) if Daemon Tools Lite doesn't work.
http://trial.alcohol-soft.com/en/downloadtrial.php

[Lemur]

I like powerISO

Easy to use, free etc

Hmm ... their website has a bit where you're supposed to give them money. Are we sure this is free, and not "demo now, pay later"?

[Louis VI the Fat]

I tried Daemon. Couldn't get it to work on my Windows 7 / 64 bit machine.

I'll try the others, the free ones. I just need a simple, dummy-proof little utility.


Thank you all for the suggestions!

[Xiahou]

Virtual CloneDrive is free and claims to support Windows7 64bit. (I haven't used it, but it might suit your needs)

[pevergreen]

Hmm ... their website has a bit where you're supposed to give them money. Are we sure this is free, and not "demo now, pay later"?

Its shareware, in the same way that WinRAR is. As in, it says "Please buy me" you click later, and it works in full.
FYI: That limitation it has there, never actually worked that way for me. I've edited 4gb stuff etc.


powerISO is about as easy as I've seen. You click mount, it brings up a list of the virtual drives and what is mounted on them, you click a free/used one, select the image file and it is mounted.

Also quite easy to change how many virtual drives are there, in that drop down list is the option. Its letting me put up to 23 virtual drives on.

edit: feeling generous

Daemon Tools Lite. However, I am unsure as whether or not it works on a 64-bit system.
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/downloads

Works on my W7 Professional 64 bit.

[Beskar]

I tried Daemon. Couldn't get it to work on my Windows 7 / 64 bit machine.

It works perfectly fine for both of mine. Not sure why it wouldn't work.

[Madoushi]

What good is a virtual drive?

It's virtually as good as a real drive.

[Xiahou]

Virtual CloneDrive is free and claims to support Windows7 64bit. (I haven't used it, but it might suit your needs)

FWIW, I tried Virtual CloneDrive on an XP machine today, and I was pretty impressed. Next time I need a virtual drive, I'll be using it.

[Louis VI the Fat]

FWIW, I tried Virtual CloneDrive on an XP machine today, and I was pretty impressed. Next time I need a virtual drive, I'll be using it.

It works like a charm!

Unfortunately, I am still too stupid to operate it. Apparantly, you need to convert your discs into an .iso before you can mount them into Virtual CloneDrive.

Rather than start a new thread 'What is a good .iso converter?', does anybody know how to do this? A quick link to a site for dummies?


I don't know about this stuff. I write my mail with a quill, which I then have converted by my assistant into 'e-mails', or whatever it was she called them.

[Madoushi]

I've heard DiscJuggler is good, but I've never been able to get it to run, on any PC.
So I use Nero, when I have to. (I hate .isos so much)

[LeftEyeNine]

Dear Lwi,

Please get using Magic ISO Virtual CD/DVD Manager.

Truly yours,

LEN

[Beskar]

Unfortunately, I am still too stupid to operate it. Apparantly, you need to convert your discs into an .iso before you can mount them into Virtual CloneDrive.

I said that in the 2nd post.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I said that in the 2nd post.

I know. After one week, I managed the first part of your excruciatingly technical post. Then I struggled with the even more rocket-sciency second half, and cried for help.


One day I'll succeed!

You can get a virtual drive from Daemon tools (google search it), what you do is copy your cd's and dvd's onto your computer as an ISO and you load these onto your virtual drive.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Assuming you have a clone image of whatever contents on your CD disk, it should be possible to mount this file.

Something like this should work (requires administrator powers, so you'll have to run cmd.exe as administrator)

mount "c:\drives\my_clone" +

From what I understand that makes Windows attempt to figure out the filesystem type of "c:\drives\my_clone" and mount it under some mount point, so it can be accessed like any other type of storage medium (e.g. USB stick, harddisk partition, DVD, memory card).

[Xiahou]

Rather than start a new thread 'What is a good .iso converter?', does anybody know how to do this? A quick link to a site for dummies?

The lovely and talented ImgBurn should be able to make iso's from discs. It's also a great iso burning program.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I've succeeded!


I'm now officially a whiz kid, a mighty geek, a Jedi of the digital age!
Thank you all for the suggestions and input.



Oh - does anybody know what that right button on my mouse does?
j/k

[Tellos Athenaios]

It gives a nice clicking sound.