Virtual CD drive. Daemon Tools Lite program interface

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It's no secret that the use of DVDs and CDs in Lately is on the decline, since there are more convenient analogues: various flash cards, removable hard disks and other wonders of technology. However, a technology developed relatively long ago remains unaddressed - the creation of virtual drives and disks.

What is a virtual drive?

It is necessary to distinguish virtual drives from virtual disks.

A virtual drive is a device that has the same functions as a physical drive: disc writing, reading, and so on.

A virtual disk is analogous to a disk that can be read or written using a virtual drive. Most often, the object of recording on a virtual disk is a so-called disk image, which is an iso file.

However, the virtual drive and disk cannot be moved, scratched, or folded into an envelope. These devices are virtual, that is, they do not physically exist. We emulate their presence in our computer.

What is a virtual drive used for?

There are a number of reasons why using virtual drives and disks is justified:

The ability to quickly transfer a disc to a computer without spending money on buying a DVD disc.
Maximum security. The actual disk or drive can be scratched, hit, or broken. Virtual devices do not have this threat.
The ability to create as many virtual drives as you like, and even more so disks.
Convenience of transmitting information over the Internet.

Thus, we get a flexible mechanism for writing, reading and transmitting information, without spending any money on purchasing additional drives and a bunch of disks; this approach is becoming outdated every day. You don’t have to bother with packaging disks, you don’t have to learn how to install and configure the drive in your computer. You just need to have it installed on your computer operating system Windows 7 and higher.

How to create a virtual drive?

Having figured out what using virtual drives gives us, we move on to the most interesting stage - creating them on your computer.
Today there are a lot of programs that allow you to implement this. The most time-tested and easy to use are Alcohol 120 and UltraISO. We will analyze the use of both programs, after which everyone can decide for themselves which program is more convenient.

Virtual drive for Windows 7 using UltraISO

Download this program from an official or any other source. It is advisable to use latest version 9.6.5, although using older versions is not critical.

During installation, at the selection stage additional tasks, you need to check the box “Install ISO CD/DVD emulator”

Ready. After installation, go to My Computer and see that the virtual drive has already been created:

Let's launch the program. In the left top corner We see the disk image, which was also created automatically. To the right of it is shown its contents, which are still empty. Below is the directory of files on our computer, this is where we can choose necessary files and send them to our virtual disk:

We see that the data has been added to the virtual disk directory. Go to File -> Save As:

Click on the “Mount to virtual drive” icon:

Make sure that the path to the file is set correctly and click “Mount”:

We go to My Computer, open the contents of the virtual disk and see that the file Pactioner.php is written to it:

Thus, in just a minute we created a virtual drive and mounted the disk image on it. In the example we used regular file, instead of it there could be, for example, some game that you need to emulate from the disk, so as not to take out the disk every time and load it into a real drive. Recording such things looks the same way: select the game disk files in the directory, transfer them to a virtual disk, emulate it, and you're done. You no longer need a real disk.

Virtual drive for Windows 7 using Alcohol 120

Download and install the program. After installing the program, we see that Alcohol 120 separates physical drives from virtual ones:

Virtual drive F is ready to use; to do this, simply transfer the necessary ISO files to the field above and select the desired function. To burn the image to a real disk, select Image Burning Wizard. In this case, we want to emulate our image on a virtual drive, so we’ll add the same image that we created in UltraISO, click right click mouse and select Mount on Device:

Ready. It will be revealed to us new disk with the recorded file Pactioner.php:

Results

We have reviewed theoretical basis virtual drives and disks, figured out programs that allow you to use this technology. Undoubtedly, using these things will save your time and nerves, which is very important in the age of information technology.

Many users encounter problems launching image files. They can contain any information, from movies to games. To open this file format, you need special programs that will create virtual CD-ROM. The most popular are Alcohol 120 and UltraISO. In this article we will try to figure out how to create virtual media.

How to create a virtual disk with Alcohol 120

This program allows you to create virtual media, mount and burn images, and much more. To work with it, you need to download the file and run the installation.
Next, you need to agree to the license, wait until the installation is complete and restart your computer.
When you launch the utility, the system will ask you to select components to install; it is recommended to leave everything unchanged. In the window that appears at the bottom of the screen, you will see that the computer already has two drives.
Now you need to create an image file, to do this, insert any boot disk, which needs to be mounted into the optical drive. In the program window, click on the image creation column and click start.
The creation of the image file will begin, you must wait until the end of the operation and click ready.
Now this image will appear in the window; using the right mouse button you can mount it to virtual media.
As you can see, using this program to create ISO-image files and mount them without using an optical drive is quite simple.

How to create a virtual disk in UltraISO

This program performs all the same functions as the previous one. She can also edit different image formats, which gives her more options. You can download the utility from any program website and activate the trial version. After installation, you need to launch the application. The main menu of the utility should appear on the screen.
To create an image, you need to insert your boot disk into the optical drive. You can launch the Image Creation Wizard using the F8 key. Now you need to select the image format and drive. After this, you need to press the “start” button and wait for the process to complete.
Now the file is ready, you can mount it into a virtual drive, to do this you need to press the F6 key. The utility will prompt you to select the drive and image that needs to be mounted.
You can unmount the disk in the same way. As you can see, these utilities are quite easy to use, the main thing is a little practice.

Users who lived through the early 2000s probably remember the times when films computer games, programs and music were delivered to our computers only using CD/DVD discs that were common at that time. About free downloading of data on the Internet, torrents and youtube more no one knew. The situation was saved by optical drives, with the help of which information was transferred to HDD computer.

The rapid development of Internet technologies has called into question the need to have such a component as a “disk drive”. In the current stationary systems You will rarely see a drive in laptops. All because of virtual disks, which replaced “blanks” and became commonplace. However, not everyone was able to make a comfortable transition to new technology. In this article we will try to fix this situation and explain in detail the essence of the creation process, the nuances of use and other questions that have repeatedly arisen for everyone who does not know how to use a virtual CD ROM.

When you might need it

Many may doubt the idea of using an innovation that has caught on with some people and simply continue to use the optical drive, using it to rewrite images and information onto physical media. However, the archaic version loses in some cases, the most common of which are:

Missing or faulty disk drive. Any part does not have an eternal service life. Sooner or later, a problem may arise, and it’s good if it does not happen at the most necessary moment (which, according to the “law of meanness,” happens often). In addition, the system specialist who receives the disk with information from you may simply not have optical drive. But a virtual CD-ROM is available on any modern PC (if you devote some time to creating it).
Multichannel. I have rarely come across computers that had multiple disk drives at once. Users who often work with recording and reading discs had to constantly rearrange CD/DVDs. WITH virtual disks There are no such problems, which means you can work with several at once.
Convenient data transfer. To exchange information recorded on a disc, you need to personally hand over the media to the receiving party. In the case of virtually recorded images, the transfer is carried out online, over the Internet.

Creating a virtual CD-ROM

For reading virtual images (iso files; mdf, bwi, mds and others), you need to create a virtual CD-ROM, which, like an optical drive, reproduces (emulates) data from the drive. You can create a virtual disk using special software such as Daemon Tools, Virtual Drive, Their operating principle is identical, and their functionality is largely similar. For example, we took the last one listed, since its capabilities and tools are very easy to cope with even for a user who is far from such processes.

First, download the Alcohol 120% program installer using a link from the Yandex disk, or on the developer’s official website. Install it on your computer.
Let's launch the program. First of all, we need to create a virtual CD drive. To do this, in the “Settings” section, select the option "Virtual disk".

In the menu that opens, manually select the number of virtual disks to be created. Confirm the result by clicking on the OK button.

The drive has been successfully created, which we can see in the “Device” panel or in the “My Computer” folder.

Now let's open finished image. To do this, select the "File" tab, and in the menu that opens, click on "Open..." (or simply use the combination Ctrl keys+O).

We find the image file we need, select it with LMB and click on the “Open” button.

The image has been added to the library for processing.

Now you need to read the previously added file. To do this, select the RMB image, and in the drop-down menu select the option "Mount to device".

Work is done. We can see the result in the “Computer” folder, where the installer located in the virtual drive will be listed among the reading devices.

After performing operations with the image, you need to remove it from the virtual drive. To do this, using the Alcohol 120% program, in the menu of available drives, select our BD-ROM with the right mouse button and select the function from the list "Dismantle image". The disk will be empty again.

If you want to remove the virtual drive completely, you need to repeat similar actions, as when creating it:

In the available devices, click on the DVD/CD drive RMB. In the list that appears, click “Properties”.

Set the value back to “0” in the section for selecting the number of virtual disks and click “OK”.

Adding a virtual hard disk

The above opportunities have been available to many for a decade now. Popularity of use virtual device reading information has caused the emergence of a similar phenomenon called virtual hard disk. This technology allows you to create a file (with a VHD extension) that appears in Explorer as standard section on your hard drive. Everyone decides for themselves the rationality of using a virtual drive: some reorganize it this way free space on volumes, others even install the OS. Do not forget about the opportunity to create a protected file container, thus limiting information from attacks by other users.

We will create a virtual hard disk using standard Windows tools(this feature is available in Windows systems 7, 8.1, 10). However, with the help of special software you can achieve a similar result. Daemon Tools Ultra, as well as Disk2vhd, cope with this task most effectively. These programs have separate sections, dedicated to the creation of virtual disks (both drives and drives similar to HDDs).

Open the “Run” service by simultaneously pressing the Win + R keys. Enter the command diskmgmt.msc into the empty line and click OK.

The service will open "Disk Management". In the control menu, activate the "Action" tab, and in it select "Create a virtual hard disk".

In the window that appears, you need to specify the location created file, select the format (VHD/VHDX), and also determine the possibility of file extension.

The file has been created, but the disk has not yet been initialized. By right-clicking on the disk, select the option "Initialize disk".

In the next window you need to specify the section style (we recommend GUID if you intend to limit standard features work with allocated space).

Connecting the drive after rebooting the PC

Unfortunately, working with virtual hard drive requires reconnection VHD/VHDX file after completing each session. Fortunately, we don’t have to create a new disk, initialize a partition, or create a volume. To return the virtual disk to work (emulate data), you must perform the following steps:

We hope that with the help of our article you learned how to create a virtual disk, and also determined the benefits of using it.

We also watch the video

DAEMON Tools Lite- a free program for emulating CD/DVD drives and creating disk images. By using Daemon programs Tools Lite will be able to convert physical optical discs (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) into virtual drives to run the disc image directly from the computer without using a physical drive.

Starting with version DAEMON Tools Lite 10, the program's interface has been redesigned in Windows style 10, some have been changed functionality programs. The general concept of the application has changed: free version only programs left basic functions, connection additional features, now occurs only on a paid basis.

Computer games and many multimedia programs are recorded on physical media - optical CD/DVD/ Blu-ray discs. From such an optical disk the game or program is installed on the computer.

Also, in many cases, in order for a game or program to work, an optical disc containing the game must be inserted into the computer drive. Basically, this is done to protect against the use of pirated software.

IN this moment, you can find it on the Internet great amount games or programs saved in various formats disk image. By using special program- a virtual drive emulator, the user can use the image with the game, running it directly on the computer in a virtual drive.

The DAEMON Tools Lite program creates a virtual drive on your computer that can be used as a regular physical drive. Therefore, the disk image can be launched directly from the computer, from the folder in which it is located.

To do this, the disk image will need to be mounted in a virtual drive. Daemon Tools can bypass disk protection: RMPS, SafeDisc, SecuROM, LaserLock.

Thus, the user can use the game disc image directly from the computer using an emulator optical drives, Daemon Tools Lite programs.

The manufacturer of the DAEMON Tools program has different functional versions of the program for emulating disk drives and for working with disk images. For normal use The free version of the program - Daemon Tools Lite - is quite suitable.

DAEMON Tools Lite supports mounting disk images in the following formats:

.mdx, .mds, .mdf, .iso, .b5t, .b6t, .bwt, .ccd, .cdi, .cue (.ape, .bin, .flac, .wav), .nrg, .isz, . tc, iscsi, .vhd, .vmdk, .vdi, .zip.

In Daemon Tools you can create images from CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs in the following formats:

.iso, .mds, .mdx.

In total, you can create four virtual drives in the free DAEMON Tools Lite program. The virtual drive can be used exactly like a physical CD/DVD drive.

The virtual drive supports Blu-ray discs, so if you have a Blu-ray image on your computer, you can open this image using Daemon Tools Lite, mounting this image in a virtual drive.

You can download the free DAEMON Tools Lite program from the manufacturer's official website.

download daemon tools lite

Install DAEMON Tools Lite on your computer. When installing the program on your computer, select a free license.

In more earlier versions program, after opening Explorer, you could see a new connected device: virtual drive - BD-ROM drive. There was a program icon in the system tray, from where you could control the program’s operation, mount or dismount images.

In Daemon Tools Lite 10, there is no longer an icon in the notification area. You can control the program from the main program window, or directly from the context menu: opening images, if the corresponding formats were associated with this program.

Daemon Tools Lite program interface

The main part of the program's main window is occupied by the “Image Catalog” area. The images added to the program will be displayed here. Naturally, if necessary, you can delete images from this directory.

On the left side of the program window there is a vertical panel with tabs. In the free version of the program, you will be able to use the functionality from the “Images” and “New Image” tabs. To use additional features from the “Disc Burning”, “Virtual HDD”, “USB”, and “Writer Drive” tabs, you will need to pay.

In the lower left part of the program window, there are buttons “Settings”, “License”, “Help”.

At the very bottom of the program window there is a panel on which all connected in the DAEMON Tools Lite program will be displayed virtual drives. When you turn it on for the first time, using the “Scan” button, you can start searching for images on your computer to add the found images to the “image catalog.” You can add images to the catalog manually whenever you want.

In the images tab, you can add images to the “image catalog” using the “Add image” (plus) button, or find the image on your computer using the image search.

Daemon Tools Lite 10 Settings

You can enter the DAEMON Tools Lite settings from the main program window. To do this, click on the “Settings” button (gear) on the panel.

In the “Integration” tab you can change file associations with the DAEMON Tools Lite program.

How to mount a disk image in Daemon Tools Lite

You can mount the disc image with the game in DAEMON Tools from the main program window or from the context menu.

After you add the disk image to Daemon Tools Lite, you can select the image and then click on “Mount”. Otherwise, in the image directory, you can right-click on the disk image, and in context menu select “Mount”.

Then the installation of this game on your computer will begin.

When mounting an image in the main program window, you can simply drag the image with the game from the image directory onto the “Quick Mount” button.

To add a disk image, you can simply click on the “Quick Mount” button, and then select the disk image on your computer to add it to the drive emulator.

After this, a virtual drive will appear in Explorer - BD-ROM drive with the added image.

How to unmount an image in Daemon Tools Lite

To unmount the image, in the main window of the DAEMON Tools Lite program, you will need to click on the “Unmount all drives” item. You can also move the mouse cursor to the image of the image that is displayed in the virtual disks panel, and then click on the red cross.

The creators of the program developed new driver for emulating drives, which works much faster than before. Mounting and unmounting images occurs almost instantly.

How to create a disk image in Daemon Tools Lite

The process of creating a disk image can be started from the main window of the DAEMON Tools Lite program. To do this, in the “New image” tab you will need to click on the “Create image from disk” button. Other image creation options do not work in the free version of the program.

After this, a new window “Creating an image from disk” will open in the “Basic parameters” section. The "Drive" field will display your computer's disk drive. Insert a disc with a game or program into this drive.

You can choose a location to save the image on your computer. In the "Format" field, you can select the format (MDX, MDS, ISO) to save the disk image.

Other settings do not work in the free version of the program, including “Advanced settings”.

After completing the image creation, new image disk will be saved in the selected folder on your computer.

Conclusions of the article

A similar program can be installed on a computer that does not have a physical drive (netbooks, some laptops), since such a program - a CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc emulator, can help the user out more than once. You can use the virtual drive in DAEMON Tools Lite 10 like a real drive on your computer.

By using free program With DAEMON Tools Lite, you can create and use a virtual drive to install and run games and programs directly from your computer, without using a physical drive.

For one reason or another they cannot be used. Imagine the situation: you downloaded an image of a game from the Internet, but you don’t have discs at hand to record it! This has probably happened to many people.

Of course, you can install this image on a flash drive, but not everyone knows how to do this. How to be in in this case? A virtual drive will come to your aid, from which you will install the program or game you need. Creating it is not difficult at all, and it does not require any specific computer knowledge and skills.

There is one small bug in some versions of the program. The fact is that if you select an odd number of disks, the program, for some reason, cannot create them. For example, it can easily create 4 disks, but when creating a seventh virtual drive, it may stumble.

By the way, what else might the average user need them for? Let's start with the fact that with the help of a virtual disk you can avoid damage to your physical media. Speaking in simple language, it is better to create an image of your licensed copy of the game and run it from a virtual disk. So, the real media will be less susceptible to abrasion and scratches.

In addition, the virtual drive for Windows 7 in some cases can be used to create a video file avi format from virtual In this case, the process will go much faster, because the speed of the virtual disk is many times higher than the speed of the physical disk!