Virtual CD disk. Programs for creating a virtual disk

CD/DVD disks are among the most popular external storage media, but working with them in practice is not always convenient, and there are many reasons for this. These disks must be inserted into the drive and data exchange with them is noticeably slower than with a hard drive. As a result, launching a program from a CD will take significantly more time. CD/DVD discs become unreadable if they have bad sectors or many scratches, and this will sooner or later happen during active use. For mobile users, another difficulty arises - when going on a business trip, they have to take with them the entire set of disks that may be required for work, which is also unpleasant, since it increases the size of their luggage. You can avoid such problems by copying information from CDs to a hard drive, but this option will not work for every program. For example, discs with games, licensed databases, educational programs, audio discs, etc. when copying them to a hard drive, they often refuse to work. In such cases, you will have to take a different route - create virtual CD/DVD drives on your computer and place images of frequently used disks in them. Technically, this involves performing two operations. First, you will need to create the necessary disk image files (that is, virtual CDs) - this can be done using programs for burning and copying CD-DVD discs (such as, for example, Nero Burning ROM) and save these images on your hard drive. And then you will have to use a special virtual drive emulator program, with which you will need to create the required number of virtual CD/DVD drives and connect a prepared disk image to each of them. As a result, you can work with virtual CDs in the same way as with real ones. Moreover, it will be much faster and more reliable. Why? It's very simple. On the one hand, access to information will be faster, since it will be read from a hard drive much faster than from a CD, and to launch a virtual disk you will not have to insert a real disk into a physical drive. On the other hand, the likelihood of losing valuable data as a result of disk failure will be reduced, because the CD/DVD disks themselves are not inserted into the drive, and therefore their surface does not wear out. Moreover, it will be possible to work with several disks simultaneously.

DAEMON Tools 4.30.0305

And then sequentially mount a virtual disk for each of the drives, simply specifying the corresponding image files for them on the hard drive (command Virtual CD/DVD-ROM > "Drive..." > "Mount image"). To remove an image from a virtual drive, you will need the "Unmount image" command.

The technology for working with DAEMON Tools Pro is somewhat more complicated. The window of this utility is implemented in the form of three panels - the information panel and two windows: the image window and the drive window. The images window is designed to perform various types of operations on images, and the drives window allows you to manage physical and virtual CD/DVD devices.

The first step in DAEMON Tools Pro is to create a collection of images. If the images were created earlier and you have not yet forgotten which specific folder on the disk they are located in, then you need to click on the “Add images” button and immediately place them in the collection. If you don’t remember where they are, you will have to use the automatic search mode (the “Search for images” button).

If there are no images on the disk yet, you need to create them. To do this, insert the treasured disk into the CD/DVD-ROM, click on the “Create an image” button, select the appropriate physical drive (of course, if there are several drives) and, if necessary, change the disk reading settings on the “Drive” tab. And then on the “Image Catalog” tab, enter the name of the image and indicate the output format, after which they click on the “Start” button and after a couple of minutes they get the desired image.

After the collection is filled with images in one way or another, install the required number of virtual drives by clicking the “Add SCSI Virtual Drive” button the appropriate number of times - the connected drives appear in the program’s virtual drives window. It should be noted that one virtual drive is created automatically during the installation process of the program.

Then a virtual image is installed on each of the virtual CD/DVD devices. To carry out such an installation, you should activate the first image and use the “Mount image” command from the context menu, followed by specifying the desired virtual drive. After this, a similar operation will need to be carried out with all other images. If you need to remove an image from a virtual drive, use the "Unmount" command from the context menu.

Alcohol 120% 1.9.8.7612 and Alcohol 52% 1.9.8.7612

Emulating virtual CD/DVD drives in Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% requires three steps. At the first stage, a collection of images is formed. If images already exist, then you can connect them directly by simply right-clicking in a free area of ​​the browser window, calling the "Add images" command from the context menu and specifying the desired images. Well, if you don’t remember where exactly the images are located on the disk, then you can use the image search (the “Search for images” operation in the “Basic operations” group), and only then connect the images.

If the image files do not exist on the disk, you will have to create them. It is not difficult to do this in Alcohol 120% (or in Alcohol 52%). To do this, you just need to activate the “Create Images” operation, select a physical drive (only if there are several drives), determine the data type and, if necessary, adjust the disk reading settings, and on the next screen enter the name of the image and click the “Start” button.

After forming a collection of images, virtual drives are connected - this is the responsibility of the “Virtual Disk” operation from the “Settings” group, after launching which you will need to determine the required number of virtual devices. You can also enable/disable the checkboxes “Remount images on system reboot” and “Mount image on Device 0 by double-clicking”. Enabling the first checkbox will ensure that virtual disks are saved in their virtual drives after rebooting or shutting down the computer. Enabling the second one will allow you to mount the image file by double-clicking on it into the first free virtual drive. After this, you will still need to activate the “File Associations” subsection and mark those extensions of the image files that are supposed to be mounted into virtual devices. The result of these manipulations will be the appearance in the lower right subwindow of the program, in addition to the physical CD/DVD devices, of a list of virtual drives that have appeared. By the way, it’s worth noting that one virtual drive can be created during installation of the program, unless, of course, you uncheck the corresponding box during installation.

Well, now all that remains is to mount virtual CDs on virtual devices using the “Mount to device” command from the context menu. You can mount the image faster by simply double-clicking on it, however, this is only provided that the “Mount image on Device 0 by double-click” checkbox was not disabled when connecting virtual drives. To remove an image from a virtual drive, use the "Unmount image" command.

Virtual CD 9.3.0.1

The CD Management module provides management of virtual CDs and images.

In Virtual CD, it is more difficult to understand the options responsible for creating a collection, since they are scattered across different modules, and the total number of different settings is large. If we are talking about adding existing image files to the collection, then this can be done both through the Toolbox module and through the CD Management module. In the first case, open the Main Tasks in Virtual CD tab and launch the Find Virtual CDs automatic image search function.

In the second, call the Add command from the context menu and specify specific images from the folder.

You can also add a new virtual drive in two ways - using the Add/Remove Virtual Drives command, activating it from the system tray, or in the CD Management module, calling the Drive Editor command from the context menu. In both cases, a device selection dialog box opens, where additional drives should be enabled. By the way, if no more than four drives are required, then these operations will not be necessary, since by default the program automatically adds four virtual drives to the system during installation.

Mounting virtual CDs is easier, since this is done by simply dragging the image onto the drive in the CD Management window or installing the virtual CD on the drive through the system tray. The Eject command is responsible for removing an image from a virtual drive.

It should be noted that many operations in Virtual CD require the sequential opening of many windows (and this slows down the process) - you can speed up the work by assigning hotkeys to a number of actions, as well as by actively using system tray commands, duplicating the basic operations of the Toolbox and CD Management modules.

Personal computer users often encounter optical disc image files of the format ISO or MDF. These files contain various file information, multimedia content or installation “image” with Windows OS, as well as many other data.

Therefore, the PC user faces a task, the solution of which is to open these files, view them, or process information on these images. The most popular programs that can create a virtual DVD-ROM for reading ISO images, as well as writing them to optical drives, are Alcohol 120 And Ultra ISO. In this material, we will describe with examples how to create a virtual DVD-ROM, and also describe the process of creating ISO images using these utilities.

We create and mount images on a virtual DVD drive using Alcohol 120

Alcohol 120 appeared back in 2002. Since then, it has become very popular among Russian-speaking users. It gained popularity due to the ability to create virtual DVD drives and mount an image on them. The program can also write images to physical optical drives. You can download the program on its official website www.alcohol-soft.com. After downloading the installer, you can begin installing the program. When we run the installation file, we will be taken to its start window.

In this window, click Next, and continue downloading and installing the utility to go to the next window. In this window, we will make a decision regarding the license agreement, after which the main utility installer will begin downloading to the computer. After downloading, the main installer window will launch.

Let's move on to the next step, where we will also resolve the issue of accepting the license agreement, and then click the Next> button. After completing these steps, the installer will ask you restart your computer, with which we must agree.

After reboot the same wizard will start, in which you must again accept the license agreement. Next we will move on to selection of installed components. Leaving all components unchanged, click the Next> button.

In the next window, select the installation location for the utility and click the Next> button. After these steps installation will begin. After installing the program, launch it from a shortcut on the Desktop, which will allow us to go to the main program window.

At the bottom of the program you can see that we have two optical drives on our computer, one virtual, which I made Alcohol 120 and one physical. Now let's start creating an image file. To do this, insert a licensed disk with Windows 10 into our PC. Going to the program window, press the button “ Creating images" This action will open the Image Creation Wizard.

From this window you can see that the utility I myself chose the physical drive from which I need to make an image file, and also displayed all the information about the disc located in the DVD drive. To create an image file, the last step left is to click the Start button.

The recorded ISO image will appear in the main window of the utility. By right-clicking on it, you can mount it to the utility’s virtual disk.

The example shows that creating an ISO image and mounting it on a virtual DVD-ROM is not at all difficult. Also, if necessary, the created image file can be written to a new optical disk directly from the utility menu in the “ Burning images to discs" With this action we will make another copy of the Windows 10 license disk.

Create and mount images on Virtual DVD-ROM using UltraISO

Program Ultra ISO just like Alcohol 120 can burn images, create Virtual DVD drives and mount images on them. In addition, the utility can edit dozens of image formats, which is a big plus. You can download the utility from its official website https://ezbsystems.com/ultraiso. Even a novice user can figure out how to install the utility, as it is very simple. Therefore, there is no point in describing the installation process of the utility. After installing the utility, launch it from a shortcut on the Desktop. This action will move us to the main program window.

Before creating an image in Ultra ISO, insert the licensed disc with Windows 10 into the DVD drive. Now in the program window press the F8 key to call the image creation wizard. In the wizard, select the image type " ISO"and the DVD drive where our Windows 10 disk is located. After installing the selected options, click the Make button, which will directly launch the creation process itself.

To mount our created image file, we need to press the F6 button, after which a wizard will appear in which we can choose the location of our image, mounting it on the virtual drive created during installation of the utility.

In the same way, we can unmount an image file from a virtual DVD drive.

As can be seen from the example, the utility is as easy to use as Alcohol 120.

Let's sum it up

The utilities discussed are quite easy to use and perform their task 100 percent. Therefore utilities Alcohol 120 And Ultra ISO have become so popular among millions of users around the world. In addition to the programs discussed, there are also such popular utilities that you can familiarize yourself with:

• Gizmo Drive;
• WinCDEmu;
• DAEMON Tools.

These programs have similar functionality as in the utilities under consideration. I would also like to note that these programs and the ones in question support both old and new Windows operating systems, so users, for example, with Windows XP will not have any problems running them.

We hope that our material introduced you better to Alcohol 120 And Ultra ISO, so you can create your own disk images and mount them on virtual drives.

DAEMON Tools is the best program for creating virtual disks and mounting them (emulating), which significantly reduces disk space and allows you to create backup copies of all necessary files. The main difference between this program and many other similar ones is that the developers of the utility put the interests of their users much higher than everything else. This is evidenced by the constantly updating versions of the program, which is becoming more and more convenient to use and universal in application. The main advantages of the utility include:
- the ability to create images (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) as a file and mount them.
- the ability to replace physical wear of all types of disks.
- a convenient and clear interface will make absolutely no one use the program for all categories of users.
- allows you to use all possible image formats.
- provides the ability to copy boot disks, and also makes it possible to protect saved files with a password, which will ensure complete security for file storage.
In order to be able to use the program, you need to take the following steps.
First you need to download and install the program on your personal computer:

After this, select the desired program components to use and determine the program installation folder. Installation will take just minutes.

After installation, you need to launch the program and select the image creation tab, after which a window will open in which you need to select the disk drive parameters, writing speed, and location of the new disk image. Select the file for the image and its format. It is advisable to specify the maximum reading speed and, if necessary, you can specify a protection password.

When you have finished selecting the parameters, you need to click on the start button and the image will be created automatically in the previously specified folder.
A fairly convenient interface and ease of use are the main advantages of this program, which is designed to greatly secure and expand the range of capabilities of your disk images to 4 different units, which will replace the need to save disks and fear their failure.

A lot of users of personal computers on the Windows platform 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 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 the file structure of a 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 increase 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 this, 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

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, which were common at that time. No one knew about free downloading of data on the Internet, torrents and YouTube. The situation was saved by optical drives, with the help of which information was transferred to the computer’s hard drive.

The rapid development of Internet technologies has called into question the need to have such a component as a “disk drive”. In today's desktop systems and laptops you rarely see a drive. All because of virtual disks, which replaced “blanks” and became commonplace. However, not everyone was able to make a comfortable transition to the new technology. In this article we will try to correct 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 doesn’t happen at the most necessary moment (which, according to the “law of meanness,” happens often). In addition, the “system specialist” receiving the disk with information from you may simply not have an 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. There are no such problems with virtual disks, 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

To read 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 the 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.

1. 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.
2. 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".

1. 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.

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

1. 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.

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

The job 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 in the list "Dismantle image". The disk will be empty again.

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

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

1. 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. The popularity of using a virtual information reader has led to the emergence of a similar phenomenon called a virtual hard disk. This technology allows you to create a file (with a VHD extension) that is displayed in Explorer as a standard partition on your hard drive. Everyone decides for themselves the rationality of using a virtual drive: some reorganize free space on volumes in this way, others even install an 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 function is available on Windows 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 creating virtual disks (both drives and drives like HDDs).

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

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

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

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

1. In the next window, you need to specify the partition style (we recommend GUID if you intend to limit yourself to standard capabilities for working with the allocated space).

Connecting the drive after rebooting the PC

Unfortunately, working with a virtual hard disk requires remounting the VHD/VHDX file after each session is completed. 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