Good day everyone!
Regular CD/DVD discs, no matter how sad it may be, are losing their popularity year after year (they used to be sold on every corner ☻). Still, the development of network technologies is doing its job...
Meanwhile, there is another side of the coin - the so-called virtual disks - separate file(s) made on the basis exact copy physical CD/DVD disk. They are also called images. The most popular image formats: ISO, BIN, MDS/MDF, NRG, CCD. By the way, now many files are transferred over the network in images (for example, even to create a bootable USB flash drive with Windows, you must first download the installation image with the system from the Microsoft website).
You can’t just open such an image, you need (you guessed it) a special one virtual disk drive (or drive. Also called CD/DVD emulators).
In general, I decided to construct this article in the form of questions and answers on working with images (of which there are always many). Along the way, I will present programs that best cope with the task. I think this will make it easier to present the basics to the inexperienced reader. So, let's get started...
The most popular questions about working with virtual disks
❶. How to create a virtual disk/ISO image, etc.
First of all, to get started, I recommend installing one program - Daemon Tools (Lite version, it is free and its capabilities for creating and emulating images are more than enough). And in general, in my opinion, it is one of the best (and most popular, by the way) programs for working with disk images. I definitely recommend installation and review.
Daemon Tools (Lite)
This program allows you to mount almost all types of images, and also emulates the simultaneous operation of up to 4 drives. In addition, the program allows you to burn ready-made images to physical discs, convert from one format to another, create protected images and much more (by the way, some of the functions are paid, unfortunately). The program organizes image storage quite well: you can always find the desired disk from your collection.
And so, let’s say we have several CDs with music and games that are often used, and you are simply tired of inserting them into the drive (and over time, the discs deteriorate, get scratched, and make noise when inserted into the drive). Therefore, it is logical that once you make images of these disks, you can easily and quietly use them.
1) First you need to insert the CD into an actual physical drive.
3) Then you need to specify the drive with the disk, specify the folder where the image will be saved, and the image format (in my example, I chose ISO). To start copying, click the "Start" button.
5) When the image is ready, you will see a message stating that the operation was completed successfully, as in the screenshot below.
In general, that's all. Now you can use this image (you just need to first create a virtual drive, more on that below).
❷. How to create a virtual drive/CD/DVD-Rom emulator
Let's use the same Daemon Tools...
First you need to run the program and click "Add drive" (in the left menu of the program).
A new drive should appear at the bottom of the window: in my case, under the letter "F: (blank)".
DAEMON Tools Lite - a new drive has appeared (F:)!
❸. How to open images: ISO, MDF, NRG, etc. and run the application from them
After the virtual drive has been created in Daemon Tools, you can start opening and reading images in it. In general, Daemon Tools opens almost any image: ISO, BIN, MDF, NRG (even archives in 7z, rar, zip, etc.).
At the bottom of the window - left-click on the virtual drive (which we created in the previous step). See screenshot below.
DAEMON Tools Lite - first left click on the drive
If automatic launch of CD/DVD discs is disabled for you (and nothing appears on the screen), go to “My Computer/This Computer”: among the drives there should be a virtual one, with the disk (i.e. image) that we opened.
If you are asked whether to allow this application to make changes, answer in the affirmative (at least for familiar drives...).
❹. How to burn an image to a physical CD/DVD
Daemon Tools, of course, can burn images to physical disks, but this feature is only available in the paid version of the program. Therefore, it is better to use analogues, especially since there are also free versions in this segment.
Why not Nero? Because the Nero package is paid, weighs several gigabytes, is very slow and clumsy. It’s unlikely that many will use even a tenth of its functions (not to mention the fact that most just need to burn a disc and that’s it...).
CDBurnerXP
CDBurnerXP - free program for burning CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. The program also works great with ISO images, allowing you not only to create them, but to burn them to physical discs. The program supports dozens of languages (including Russian). Works on Windows XP/7/8/9/10.
Main features:
- record data (files, documents, pictures, etc.) on any type of disk;
- recording audio CDs;
- creating and burning ISO images;
- creating boot (installation) disks;
- BIN/NRG image converter → to ISO;
- possibility of printing covers.
After starting the program, click the button "Burn ISO image to disc" (see screenshot below).
Then specify the ISO image to burn, the physical drive, the writing speed (highlighted in yellow in the screenshot below - by the way, do not set the highest speed, errors are possible) and click "Burn disc". In general, that's all - in 10-15 minutes. your disc will be burned!
Burn Settings // CDBurnerXP
❺. What other programs can be used to work and read images?
Alcohol 120%
Alcohol 120% is an excellent and very powerful program for working with images. It does everything: creates images, mounts them into virtual drives, writes them, creates a library on your PC (for quickly searching and reading them).
Although the program is paid, there is a free trial period of 15 days (and there is also free version, with reduced capabilities). In general, I recommend you check it out!
Main features:
- creation of up to 31 virtual drives;
- creating disk images (format support: MDF/MDS, CCD, BIN/CUE, ISO, CDI, etc.);
- recording from disk images: CD, DVD and Blu-ray;
- erasing discs: CD-RW, DVD-RW and BD-RE;
- search and create a library from image files on the PC hard drive;
- Availability of an audio converter for working with audio CDs.
Ultra ISO
Official website: https://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/
A very powerful program for working with ISO images. Allows you to create them from real disks, record them, emulate them in a virtual drive, and, most importantly, edit them on the fly. Those. you can open the ISO image, remove the unnecessary file from it (or add it) and save the image. Actually, this is done very quickly!
In addition, the program will help you create a boot (installation) disk or flash drive. You can also try to compress current ISO images, etc. In general, I recommend everyone who works with ISO to have it on their PC...
Burn4Free
Very reliable and simple program for working with CD/DVD discs. Allows you to perform almost the entire range of tasks that the average PC user may need. With all this, it takes up very little space on your hard drive (several megabytes!).
Main advantages:
- burn CD/DVD discs in a few mouse clicks;
- the program is very easy and simple, the design is made in a minimalist style;
- you can copy audio discs in various formats (WAV, FLAC, WavPack, WMA, etc.);
- support SCSI - IDE/EIDE - SATA - USB;
- Russian language support;
- creating and burning ISO images;
- ability to record MP3 discs;
- support for all versions of Windows: 10, 8, 7, Vista, 2008, 2003, XP, 2000, 98;
- support for most drive models (more than 4000!).
In general, I’ll add on my own behalf that this program worked even in cases where its analogs refused to either start or see the drive. I recommend it to anyone who often works with ISO or optical discs to have in their arsenal.
Virtual Clone Drive
This program is free and designed to create a virtual drive. The program is very simple and reliable. Supports up to 15 virtual drives, fully integrated into Windows Explorer for easier and faster operation.
In general, compared to many similar programs in this spectrum, it stands out noticeably. I recommend you check it out.
Main features:
- support for all popular image formats: ISO, BIN, IMG, UDF, DVD, CCD;
- emulation up to 15 virtual drives(CD, DVD, and Blu-ray);
- there is a history of using images (for faster search and reading of the desired file);
- convenient integration into Explorer (now any image can be opened with a couple of mouse clicks!).
Instructions complete...
Good luck!
Thanks to this program, you can obtain images from any optical disks and emulate them onto virtual disks. Also, the Virtual CD functions allow you to remove Tages protection from disks for full use of their contents. For example, this application is suitable for creating images computer games, licensed programs and films. If necessary, you can burn any images to CDs. To do this, it is enough to have the Virtual SD program installed on your computer. Download it for free new version will be useful for gamers and users of licensed programs.
Possibilities:
- creating CD images;
- adding virtual drives;
- increasing the service life of physical drives;
- burning images to CDs.
Principle of operation:
so, we downloaded Virtual CD for free and installed its trial version on the computer. In the start menu of this application, you can obtain images of any contents of CDs, burn them to optical media and mount these images to virtual drives. As for the latter, up to 23 such virtual devices can be created. In addition, this application allows you to bypass Tages protection against copying data.
Note that you can install Virtual SD on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.
Pros:
- high-quality creation of images of any contents of optical discs;
- writing data to disk;
- the program bypasses Tages disk protection;
- the ability to download a free Virtual CD to your computer;
- simple interface.
Minuses:
- for the Russian-language menu you need to install a localizer;
- The program is free for the first 30 days.
The Virtual CD program is well suited for creating images of any content on CDs. In addition, the application allows you to bypass Tages protection and write any images to optical media.
By default, the program has an English menu. To change the interface language, you need to download the crack.
A lot of users personal computers on the Windows platform, people often ask questions - what are virtual disks and how to create virtual disk. To increase the awareness of our readers on these issues, in this article we will try to fully cover the topic using specific examples.
Also in our article we will look at what is virtual hard disks and where they are used. After familiarizing yourself with the material, our readers will be able to easily create virtual hard drives and image disks in ISO format, as well as mount them onto a virtual device and burn them to DVD without any problems.
Virtual optical drive and its applications
The main purpose of a virtual disk drive is mounting images optical disks. To understand in detail why it is needed, we will look at an example where an image of a disk in ISO format will be mounted on a virtual DVD-ROM. For this example, we will use the Windows 10 operating system.
A nice thing for owners of computers with the Windows 10 operating system is that it already has a virtual DVD-ROM installed. Therefore, Windows 10 owners will not have to use third-party programs to mount images.
To mount an optical disk image into a virtual DVD-ROM, we need the image itself. For example, we will use image with the Linux operating system Ubuntu. You can download the image of this operating system on its official website http://www.ubuntu.com. In our example we will use the image 64-bit Ubuntu version 15.10, which has a size of 1.1 GB.
Having downloaded the image, you can begin to mount it directly. To do this, right-click on the image file to open the context menu.
The mounted “virtual disk” can be opened and all its contents copied.
As you can see from the example, we mounted an image from the Ubuntu OS on a virtual DVD drive. Essentially, we were able to do almost what we do with a regular and optical disc when we insert it into a DVD drive and open it, only in our version all the components are virtual.
Creating a laserdisc image
In the previous example, we looked at how to open an image disk in a virtual DVD drive. Now let's deal with the situation when you need to create an image of an optical disk. To create an image, we will need the DAEMON Tools Lite program, which must be downloaded and installed. It is also worth noting that in addition to creating different image formats, DAEMON Tools Lite can also mount a huge number of formats into its own virtual DVD drive. After installing the program DAEMON Tools Lite In Explorer you will notice a new drive named ""
This “” is precisely the drive of the program in question DAEMON Tools Lite. In this example, we will create an image of the original installation DVD with the Windows 10 operating system. To make an image from the installation DVD with ten, insert it into the DVD drive. Now let’s run the utility and go to the “ New look».
In the utility window we find the button “ Create an image from disk" and press it. These actions will take us to the image creation window.
In this window, you can select the DVD drive from which the ISO image will be created, and also select the location to save it.
We will also select the image ISO format and confirm the creation by clicking the Start button, which will start creating a DVD image with Windows 10.
After creation, we will receive an ISO image file named “J_CCSA_X86FRE_RU-RU_DV5.iso”, which can be mounted or written to a regular disc and installed a new Windows using it.
The example shows how easy it is to burn an image for a virtual DVD-ROM using DAEMON Tools Lite. In the same way, you can burn images for all licensed Windows discs, be it XP or Vista. In addition, you can record images of games or software that will not run without a disc. In addition to the program DAEMON Tools Lite I would like to recommend other popular utilities that can create and allow you to open images of optical disks:
- Alcohol 120%;
- Gizmo Drive;
- WinCDEmu.
It is especially important to use these utilities on an OS that does not have built-in virtual DVD drives, for example, in OS Windows XP. In addition to XP support, each of these programs, including DAEMON Tools Lite, will be able to burn ISO images to DVD disk. In addition to supporting the ISO format, these utilities can mount other formats, including their own, which can be written to regular discs.
Virtual hard disk
A virtual hard disk is quite often used by IT specialists, as it allows them to solve many problems with backup, virtual machines and testing of various operating systems. Virtual hard disk is a container file that simulates a file structure hard drive .
Since such a disk is a file, it is therefore usually stored on a physical HDD or SSD. Starting with Windows 7, users now have the ability to create and mount a hard disk directly in the operating system.
Let's look at an example of creating a virtual hard disk using Windows 10. First, let's go to the " Execute"using the key combination Win + R and type the following command in it: diskmgmt.msc
This command will take us to the Disk Control Panel.
To create a new virtual HDD, you need to go to the " Action / Create virtual hard disk", which will open a window to create such a disk.
Starting with Windows 10, it became possible to create a disk with the format " VHDX" Unlike the "VHD" format, the " VHDX» can create containers up to 64 terabytes. Let's make our 100 GB virtual hard disk in the new format " VHDX", and also set the switch to dynamic creation mode, in which our disk will grow as it fills.
After setting the parameters of our hard drive, press the OK button, which will allow you to write it to the specified folder on the screw. Once created, the output will be a virtual hard disk named “virtual disk.vhdx”. From the image below you can see that our disk was automatically mounted, but it is still not visible in the system.
For the system to see our VHDX disk, it must be initialized. This can be done by right-clicking on the VHDX disk and selecting “ Initialize disk».
In the window that appears, do not change anything and click OK.
Now the simplest thing left is to select a file system and letter for our disk. To do this, go to it and select the item “ Create a simple volume».
After this, a wizard will launch in which you need to assign a drive letter and select a file system. After completing the wizard, the virtual hard disk will appear in Explorer.
From the example it is clear that creating a virtual HDD using OS tools is very simple, so we hope that you will no longer have the question of how to create a virtual hard disk. I would also like to note that with the created VHDX disk you can do the following operations:
- Encrypt it using BitLocker;
- Install an additional OS on it;
- Move and open it on another computer;
- Connect it to a virtual machine.
Computers based on the Windows XP operating system, which is still quite popular, do not support VHD drives. But don’t be upset, because in the utility we reviewed earlier DAEMON Tools Lite there is support for VHD disks and it Fully compatible with Windows XP.
Using a VHD disk in a virtual machine
Let's create a virtual machine based on the Windows XP operating system using the VirtualBox program. At the stage of creating a virtual machine for XP, you will be asked to create or attach a virtual hard disk, which will be used to install Windows XP on it.
At this stage we can attach a VHD disk, which we will create using Windows 10. Therefore, we will try to attach our 30 GB VHD container, which we made in ten. After creating the virtual machine, you can view the attached VHD disk in its settings.
If there is little space in the virtual machine on XP, you can always attach new VHD virtual hard disk. Besides, you can connect containers with various file data to the virtual machine for XP. In the same way, you can use virtual machine from other software products. For example, VHD containers can be installed on VMware Workstation products.
Bottom line
From the material reviewed, it is clear that the use of virtual drives and hard drives helps solve many problems much better, especially since even a novice PC user can figure out how to create them. We hope that our material will help our readers better understand the question of how to create a virtual disk and how to use it for work.
Video on the topic
Year/Date of Issue: 2011
Version: 10.1.0.14
Developer: H+H Software
Bit depth: 32bit
Interface language: Rus, Eng, Ger
Tablet: Present
Description: Description: Virtual CD is a program for creating virtual CDs. Allows the creation of up to 25 virtual CD/DVD drives and the number of CD/DVD images, limited only by the amount of free space on the hard drive, which, if necessary, can work simultaneously with different applications.
Add. information: Another use of several virtual CD drives is to install the most frequently used CD images in them on a permanent basis (in this case, you will not need to first “insert” them into the virtual CD drive, and only then use them). The program can work with Data / Audio / mixedmode CD, DVD-ROM, non-CSS DVD-Video, Photo-CD and CD-Text. When creating CD images, you can burn them to your hard drive either in normal mode or with compression (for example, a data disk can be compressed from 650 MB to 135 MB), it is possible to password-protect the created virtual CD and use the created virtual CDs in local network. If necessary, Virtual CD connects to the Internet and downloads audio CD information from CDDB.
Basic features of Virtual CD
- Ability to use up to 25 virtual drives simultaneously
- Create an unlimited number of virtual disks
- Editor for creating virtual disks of any content
- Automatic identification of title, album and artist of audio discs
- Supports DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, Photo-CD and CD-Text formats
- Easy to use with easy copy mode for beginners
- Organize virtual disks into folders
- Import ISO files
- Improved data compression
- Access to virtual disks within the network
- Supports up to 99 audio tracks per virtual CD
- Editing existing virtual disks using the built-in editor
- Drive editor for changing the number of virtual drives in the system
- Protect virtual disks with a password from unauthorized access
New and improved in this version
- Full support for the Windows 7 operating system has been introduced;
- Added support for Blu-Ray and HD DVD;
- The program interface has been significantly redesigned for more easy access to functions.
- Added functions for writing data to CD, DVD and Blu-Ray;
- Added functions for quickly converting any audio files to popular MP3 or OGG Vorbis. It is possible to set the quality of the outgoing file;
- New mode"Data Safe" for automatic creation of encrypted disks;
- Other improvements: expanded support for ISO images, integration of external programs into the application interface, expanded API for developers and other, less significant improvements.
A small FAK on Russification
Introduction: if you have 7 or Vista, it is recommended to run the cracker as an administrator. Just in case, fireman
The Russification file is a self-extracting rar archive. By default, unpacking goes to %Program Files%\Virtual CD v10 - VirtualCD itself is installed there by default. If you selected some other directory when installing VirtualCD, then when unpacking the Russification files, simply specify it as the target directory.
For those who are especially meticulous: if, after unpacking the Russification package manually, you found “French” localization files, there is no need to trouble people with your discoveries. I did this deliberately. Calmly throw the contents of the archive where necessary and go to the settings - there will be Russian as an option.
It's no secret that the use of DVDs and CDs in Lately is declining because there are more convenient analogues: various flash cards, removable hard drives 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?
You should distinguish between virtual drives and 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 Windows 7 or higher operating system installed on your computer.
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 the 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 stage of selecting additional tasks, you must check the box for “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, from here we can select the 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. The example uses a regular file; instead of it there could be, for example, some game that you need to emulate from 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, right-click and select Mount on Device:
Ready. A new disk will open 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.
