Create a virtual image. How to create a virtual disk

A virtual disk in the Windows operating system is the same as regular hard, can be used to store data. This data may include user files such as images, music, documents, etc., as well as files used installed programs and the operating system itself.

Many users like to have a separate partition for storage important files, which is created in addition to the system one. In this case, if the operating system crashes, you will need to reinstall it by formatting only the system partition. Important data stored on the optional logical partition, will remain untouched.

In the absence of a separate physical disk, it is always advisable to have the main one on several additional partitions before installing the OS. But, be that as it may, these partitions will remain parts of the same HDD. If it fails, your important data will not be protected from destruction.

What to do if you want to create a separate place to store any data after Windows installations and marking the necessary sections. You can simply create virtual disk using free space HDD. It will be possible to format it, assign its own separate letter and work in the same way as with a separate physical one.

This may also be useful for you to conduct various experiments with and other virtualization testing. Let's see how you can create such a disk using the operating system. Windows systems 10.

VIRTUAL DISK

Press the Win + R key combination on your keyboard and write in the input field:

Diskmgmt.msc

then wait for launch system utility management.

Identify a disk partition that allows you to allocate enough free space to create a virtual one. Click on the main menu item “Action” and select “Create virtual hard drive».

Specify your preferred file location, size and type, then click on the “OK” button.

After the creation process is complete, right-click on the created disk and click on “Initialize”.

After that, select in context menu item “Create a simple volume”, assign a letter, label, file system and lastly click the “Done” button.

Go to Explorer, where you will see the created virtual HDD. Now you can use it to store files or attach to virtual machine. When you want to delete it, go to management, detach the volume and delete the folder with the file. That's it!

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Before we figure out how to create virtual disks, I’ll tell you why this is needed. When starting some programs or computer games, the presence of the corresponding CD in your computer drive is a prerequisite. What if you don't have one?

Reasons for creating a virtual disk

By creating a virtual disk, you can get rid of several problems:

• protect the CD itself from wear and physical damage DVD disc and equipment,
• get rid of unnecessary sound when the drive is operating,
• the virtual disk cannot be broken or damaged,
• a more secure option for storing data and programs from attacks. By the way, you can check the program for viruses.

Disadvantages of virtual disks are also available. Let's say the following situation occurs: your system has crashed and you need to install it - and at this stage you will not be able to change the disk image, and also - until the OS boots, you will not be able to use the disk.

How to create a virtual disk using Daemon Tools

To create a virtual disk, there are a sufficient number of programs on the vast expanses of the Internet. The most popular of them are Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120, Nero, Virtual CD And Ultra ISO. By using Daemon Tools You can also emulate protected disks ( Laserlock, Securom, BACKUPcopies).

The program we will use is called . Free is only Daemon Tools Lite. Download it and install it following further instructions. The installation process is identical on almost all operating systems. The only difference is that the program may ask some questions during installation, to which a positive answer is sufficient.

So, you have downloaded the program. Feel free to run the downloaded file. Next, do everything as shown in the pictures below:

First, choose the language you know...

Then it will start "Installation Wizard". Click "Next"…

After reading license agreement, click: "I accept"(where to go?)

In the next paragraph, select the license type. (If you did not buy a licensed program) - choose "Free license".

Do the same in subsequent paragraphs. Just feel free to click "Next", "Install" - if for some reason you have little idea what it is and what it is needed for:

Click "Done". If a window pops up with the website of the program manufacturer, close it. That's all!

Now on the desktop you can see label with branded "lightning".

Launching Daemon Tools Lite

Go to “My Computer” - a new DVD drive should appear there.

For this, in fact, we installed the program. By the way, the program gives us the opportunity to make up to 4 disk drives, also supports many image file formats.

Feel free to click on the icon Daemon Tools in the notification area (right mouse button), and we see a menu as in the picture below...

I suggest you go to the tab "Virtual drives". Here the program gives us the opportunity to install the required number of drives (in Daemon Tools - up to 4 pieces), as well as mount the image of your disk to a new one - virtual. To do this, you just need to go to the option and click "Mount image." In the Explorer window we know, select the file you need for the image, then click "Open". Ready! Finally we can start working with the disk.

Daemon Tools panel

She looks like this:

There are several advantages to having this socket.

Let's start with the search bar "Daemon Search". It gives us the opportunity to search on the Internet and in in this case, acts as a search engine.

To the right we see the following buttons: "Mount" And "Image Creation". In the first case, we have the opportunity to quickly mount the image on a virtual drive. "Image Creation" makes it possible to make an image of any of your disks yourself.

The last window shows availability in virtual drives disks. Up arrow makes it possible to use the option "unmount all drives". After clicking on it, all virtual disks will be unmounted. This is necessary in order to quickly.

Of course, this is not such a “monster” as, for example, the more famous paid programs, but for everyday work you don’t need much. This option is more suitable for those who do not have disk drives (or outdated equipment), as well as those who value every megabyte of memory on their computer!

Today, no one is surprised that you can legally get games, music or movies on your computer without having them on disks or other storage devices. Users are accustomed to this, because it is convenient, it is cheaper and often does not take up space at home. But what to do when you already have an extensive collection of disks? You can create virtual disks from them and store them in digital form, in Windows OS.

What is a virtual disk

A virtual disk is a digital copy of a regular CD or DVD. This copy using special programs can be used just like any other disk, but without actually placing it in the drive. It would seem that this is not necessary, because you can simply throw off necessary files. But, firstly, this will not work with games, which often require a licensed disc in the drive. And secondly, storing discs “as is” may be more convenient, because you can build a digital collection by completely transferring your discs to your drive.

How to create a virtual disk on Windows 7

A copy of the disk can be created in different formats. Popular ISO formats, MDS and CDI, but in fact there are many more.

There are many programs designed to obtain a disk image from physical media.

Let's figure out how to get a disk image using the popular Daemon program Tools Lite:

That's how easy it is to make a digital copy of your CD or DVD. This copy is deleted just like any other file, you can simply move it to the trash. Required condition when deleting, the disk should not be used at the moment. It's worth extracting from virtual drive.

How to mount and remove a disk

"Mount a disk" means insert it into a virtual drive. After this, it can be used in exactly the same way as a real CD or DVD; most programs that require discs will not notice the difference. In order to mount the disk, you must use a special program. Most often, the program that was used to create the image can also be used to further work with him. Let's figure out how to mount and remove a disk using the same program as an example:

And now all that remains is to figure out how to remove the disk from the virtual drive after finishing working with it. This is necessary so that the disk cannot be used by someone else, or for any actions with the image file itself. There are two ways to do this:

Regardless of which method you use, the result will be the same - virtual image will be extracted from the virtual drive.

Video: creating a disk image

Useful programs

Above we mainly mentioned Daemon Tools Lite, but this is only one of many programs for working with virtual disks. Let's take a closer look at them so that each user can decide for himself which of these programs is more convenient for him.

Daemon Tools

The convenient and widely used program exists in several versions. Besides regular version, there is even a lightweight one Lite version and containing additional features Ultra as well PRO version programs. The capabilities of this program are very extensive:

Most users will be satisfied with the capabilities of the “light” version of the program, which is also available to everyone on the official website.

Most users will be satisfied with the capabilities of the “light” version of the program

Paid program with serious limitations free version. However, its functionality fully justifies this:

It can be said that Ultra ISO This professional program to create and use virtual disks. It may even have too many, most of its capabilities are not useful to the average user for easy creation virtual disk.

The program supports many existing formats, including unpopular

An affordable program that is often used for games. Even in the free version it has good features. In addition to the usual functions of recording and mounting images, I would like to note:

The program interface is very accessible

The most popular virtual disk format these days is definitely ISO. It is not surprising that so many programs include it in the name, even though they can work with other formats. This program is no exception. Although the number of supported formats of this program may be lower than that of its analogues, they are quite sufficient for comfortable use. In addition, it stands out:

Many people prefer to use this program, since the limitations of the free version are almost invisible to the average user.

Despite the name, the program supports formats other than ISO

How to add and remove

To use a virtual disk, you need a virtual disk drive. You can add or remove it in the same programs in which you created the virtual image. For each program, the instructions will be slightly different.

For UltraISO

In this program, a new virtual disk drive is created when virtual disks are mounted.

For Alcohol 120%

Video: Adding or removing a virtual disk drive

Knowing how to create virtual disks can help you in a variety of situations. Pick up convenient program for your own purposes and after a little practice, you will be able to use virtual disks for the tasks you need without the slightest difficulty.

With the development of technology and increasing availability high speed internet The need for physical storage media is steadily decreasing. Of course, it will not be possible to completely abandon CDs and DVDs, flash drives and external hard drives, since they are needed for backup storage data. However, virtual devices can quite reduce their use to a minimum.

What are virtual devices in Windows 10 and what are they for?

Virtual devices are program codes, which imitate physical devices, fully or almost fully implementing their functionality. Examples of this kind of devices that are most often used in everyday life are:

• virtual (on-screen) keyboard;
• virtual drive;
• virtual hard disk (VHD).

Virtual keyboards are needed if it is impossible to use physical ones; they are not capable of more. For example, if the real keyboard is broken or a person with disabilities is using the computer, you can display the input device on the screen and use the cursor to enter a key combination or type text.

Virtual drives are designed to connect CD and DVD images to a computer and then interact with them. Disk images are often used during installation software products: applications, games and system shells.

Virtual hard drives most widely distributed. First of all, because the virtual hard drive partition is very easy to encrypt or protect with a password. This significantly increases the security of documents and other important data. In addition, VZD is a convenient environment for testing software, scripts and other products software development. Virtual disk technology simplifies data backup, cloning physical media and many other operations.

How to create a virtual hard disk in Windows 10

The creation of the VZD is quite simple procedure, which takes a little time. It is done as follows:

1. IN Windows search enter the line “Computer Management” and select the best match. In the Windows search, enter the string “Computer Management” and select the best match
2. On the left side of the window that opens, go to the “Storage Devices” section and select “Disk Management”.
   On the left side of the computer management console window, go to the “Storage Devices” section and select “Disk Management”
3. On the toolbar, open the “Action” tab and click on the line “Create a virtual hard disk”.
   On the toolbar, open the “Action” tab and click on the line “Create a virtual hard disk”
4. Select the location on the hard drive where the file containing the virtual hard disk will be located and enter its name. Set the size in MB, GB or TB in the appropriate field and click OK.
   Set the size of the VZD file, enter its name and indicate the location on the physical disk
5. At the bottom of the window, in the section with volumes, will appear new section“Disk 2” (the number may differ depending on the number of devices installed on the computer hard drives). This section will be marked to the left of the name with a red arrow pointing down. Right-click on it and select the “Initialize disk” action, and then click OK in the confirmation window.
   Right-click on the new partition and select “Initialize disk”

The virtual disk is connected and working. All that remains is to create a section. To do this:

1. Right-click on the “Unallocated” area and select the “Create simple volume” option.
   Right-click on the “Unallocated” area and select the “Create simple volume” option
2. In the partition creation utility window that opens, click the “Next” button, select the virtual volume size and click “Next” again.
   Set the volume size in megabytes and click “Next”
3. Assign a drive letter from among the available ones and click the “Next” button.
   Choose Latin letter from the available ones and click the “Next” button
4. Leave the formatting settings untouched and click the “Next” button.
   Leave the file type NTFS systems and click the “Next” button
5. Confirm the changes with the “Done” button.
   Checking given parameters and click the “Finish” button
6. Upon completion of the operation, a new partition will appear on the hard disk containing a ready-to-use virtual volume.
   In the Disk Management console, the VZD is practically no different from standard hard drive partitions

For myself, I only created virtual hard disks a couple of times. The first time the reason was that important documents were stored on a work computer, to which many people had access. Therefore in working hours I initialized the VZD, and after work I turned it off. All data on the disk was saved, but no one had access to it. The second time I created a VZD to store very personal media files. Unfortunately, the hard drive then burned down along with the virtual disk.

Video: how to create a virtual hard disk

How to create a virtual drive

Standard using Windows 10, you cannot create and permanently save a virtual drive in the system. The service responsible for virtual DVD devices starts working only after the image is mounted. That is, the virtual drive immediately disappears as soon as the ISO file is extracted from it. These are standard Windows features differ from special emulator programs. This implementation option was chosen to save RAM.

To connect a virtual drive, perform the following steps:

How to remove a virtual device in Windows 10

If the virtual drive is not used, then I recommend removing it. Supporting a virtual DVD takes up computer resources, albeit small ones, but they may be needed if you play a more or less decent game. I always immediately check out the image as soon as I'm done with it.

How to remove a virtual drive

As mentioned above, a standard virtual drive in Windows is removed by extracting a file - a disk image. If you used third-party emulator programs, then in each of them the drive is removed in its own way.

Removing a standard virtual drive

To remove a standard virtual drive, open the Disk Management console, and then do the following:

Disabling a virtual drive in emulator programs

In most emulators, virtual drives are created automatically the first time the program is launched, sometimes even without the user's knowledge. But they are easy to remove. This is done like this (each program has its own way):

1. IN UltraIso program On the top panel, open the “Options” tab and select the “Settings” mode. Then go to the “Virtual drive” tab, set the “Number of devices” filter to “No” and save the changes with the OK button.
   Find the virtual drive parameters and set the “Number of devices” filter to “No”
2. In the Alcohol 120% program, open the “Service” tab, select “Settings”, then go to the “Virtual disk” item, set the number of drives to 0 and save the changes with the OK button.
   Find the parameters of the virtual drive and set the “Number of virtual disks” filter to 0
3. In the Daemon Tools application, right-click on the bottom panel with drives, select “Delete all” and confirm the action.

How to remove a virtual hard disk

If a virtual hard disk is no longer needed, it is very easy to remove. You can do this in two ways:

• through the disk management console;
• using the command line.

Uninstall via Disk Management console

We perform the following steps:

1. Open the Disk Management console. Right-click on the virtual hard drive and select the “Delete volume” action. Then we agree that all data from this section will be deleted and wait for the result.
   Right-click on the virtual hard disk and select “Delete Volume”
2. Next, right-click on the virtual hard disk again, select “Detach virtual hard disk” and agree to the terms by clicking OK.
   Right-click on the virtual hard disk, select “Detach virtual hard disk” and agree to the terms by clicking OK
3. After this, we delete the virtual partition file itself.
   After disconnecting the virtual hard disk, delete the partition file

Uninstall using the command line

The command line also allows you to delete a virtual volume, and you can do this literally with one command.

To do this:

Create virtual device It's very easy on a computer. At the same time, you get a disk or drive that is almost identical in its properties to a physical one, and can be used for a variety of purposes. And when it is no longer needed, it is just as easy to remove.

Hello, dear users! Characteristic opportunity operating system seventh Windows versions is that it allows you to create a virtual disk, and in the future you can perform various actions with the virtual disk (creating, changing and deleting a virtual disk partition, setting access rights for your data, as well as opening a virtual disk on other computers). In today's article we will find out how to create a virtual disk in the seventh version of Windows.

Let's say you have only one system partition on your computer (drive C), and you want to split the hard drive into additional partitions. In such a situation, the following options are possible: the first option is that the user can split the hard drive into additional partitions using special programs (you can read my article “” using one program).

The second option involves creating a virtual disk that you can connect or disconnect at any time, thereby protecting your data from other users.

So let's look at it step by step, how to create a virtual disk in the seventh version of Windows:

1. Right-click (RMB) on the “My Computer” shortcut and select “Manage” from the menu that opens.

2. In the “Computer Management” window that opens, go to the “Disk Management” section.

Now click on the “Actions” tab and select “Create” virtual hard disk". Then in the dialog box you need to specify hard section disk, that is, the storage location of the created disk. In general, of course, it is recommended to specify the partition of the disk that has more free space.

In my example, I selected disk partition “D” and set the volume of the created virtual disk to 7 GB. By default, it is recommended to select a fixed virtual disk format and click OK.

As a result, the system will begin creating the virtual disk. As shown in the figure, the progress of the operation will be displayed at the bottom of the window.

After this, the created virtual disk will be displayed in the corresponding window.

Now we need to initialize the disk so that the manager local disks could access it. Right-click on the created partition and select “Initialize disk” in the menu that appears.

In the window that appears, leave everything as default and click “OK” (In my example disk being created has number 6, it may be different for you).

At the final stage of creating a virtual disk, you will need to create a volume. To do this, right-click on the created virtual disk and go to “Create Volume”.

This will launch the special Volume Creation Assistant. Click “Next”.

Then in the next window you need to set the size of the volume to be created (you can leave it as default).

In the next window, the assistant will notify you that the corresponding letter for the volume being created has been selected.

Finally, you will need to select a file system and start the volume formatting process. I leave everything as default and click Next.

If desired, you can make the virtual disk bootable. At any time, you can disconnect or attach the created virtual disk, as well as open this disk on another computer. To do this, click on the “Actions” tab and in the drop-down list, select the command that is shown in the figure below.

After that, in the window that opens, specify the path where you previously saved the virtual disk.

To summarize, we note that in the lesson we reviewed on how to create a virtual disk, users are encouraged to create an additional partition on the hard drive thanks to special features provided in Windows 7.

In general, it is believed that it is more expedient to create a virtual disk when it is necessary to create a partition on a hard drive, and the main criterion is the fact that the virtual disk should not be stored on the system partition of the disk. That is, if on the hard drive except system partition If there are two or more partitions, then in such cases you can also create a virtual disk on which you can perform various actions and experiment without fear of losing your information and system files.

If you have one hard drive installed on your computer, the size of which is, for example, 500 GB, and it is not partitioned (there is only a “Disk C” partition), then in this case, to create additional section It is better to use a program special for this purpose.

Since all your data will be stored in a separate partition, the chances that the data will not be destroyed if the operating system crashes will be high. I also recommend that you read my article, in which you will learn:

Concluding this article, all I can say is that you now know how to create a virtual disk on your computer. As you can see, its creation does not take much time. I remind you that if you are not yet a subscriber to this blog, you can do so right now. To do this, just go to where you will learn how to properly subscribe to the blog.

That's all for today! All the best to you and in the next issue you will find out =>