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

[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.

[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)

[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.