Ever since the advent of optical media, for reading and writing of which special additional equipment was required in the form of a drive, emulators began to appear, which became virtual analogs of “iron” devices with practically the same capabilities (except that it was impossible to put a disk in them). But such drives did well without a physical medium, sometimes using the most common image files as a data source.
All this seems to be simple, but you need to create a virtual drive for ISO images somehow! What program would you recommend to novice users? Let's see together that of all the software offered on the Internet, it is as simple and practical as possible.
What is a virtual drive and why is it needed?
As it is already clear, the virtual drive is called virtual because it is present in the system exclusively in the form of a kind of emulator, into which the image file is loaded (optionally only in ISO format). It turns out that Windows sees the contents of the packed container (and the image file really resembles the most common archive in its structure) in the same way as if it were iron hardware with an optical disk inserted. But the possibilities of such software drives are much wider than it might seem at first glance. With their help, you can completely copy discs and read image files of all supported formats, which saves the user from buying "blanks" for rewriting.
Quick mount virtual drive in Windows 7 and above
But it was a brief theory. Now let's look at the practical steps. Many users are deeply mistaken in claiming that you cannot create a virtual drive in Windows. It is possible, and even very simple! Another thing is that working with it is not as convenient as if it were created in special applications. Nevertheless, starting from the seventh modification, Windows has its own means of quickly mounting a drive from an image file, which works automatically when you open an object of the appropriate format with a double click.
In the "Explorer" the device is displayed in the form of an optical disk (removable media), and the contents of the image file is displayed without physically extracting data. If necessary, you can use the disk management section (diskmgmt.msc) and add the device there.
How to create a virtual drive in UltraISO?
But products specially designed for working with image files, optical media and virtual drives certainly look an order of magnitude more powerful. So, the UltraISO application is very popular. The virtual drive program creates a completely elementary.
First you need to pay attention to the installation of the application, where at one of the stages it is mandatory to note the installation point of the ISO Drive emulator.
But in the running application, you should already use the options menu, go to the settings, and then on the virtual drive tab specify the required number of drives. All other options can be left unchanged, although if desired, you can change the letter assigned to the disk or specify an external virtual drive program using the browse button or specifying its automatic search.
You can also pre-create an ISO image or use a ready-made file on which RMB is produced, and then select the mount point in the virtual drive, after which it will appear in the "Explorer" as a removable disk.
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Before us is another popular application. This UltraISO virtual drive program is not particularly different in terms of usage.
To create a drive, you can use the first and second methods described for UltraISO, and the actions performed by the user will be reduced only to creating the required number of drives or selecting the source image file and mounting it in a virtual drive.
DAEMON Tools App
Finally, in this powerful virtual drive program, it is possible to perform similar actions with the creation of an empty drive without any data.
In the application, you should use the drive menu or the PCM menu on free space in the main window and select the item for adding a DT drive, after which it will appear next to the physical disks in the "Explorer". This solution has its advantages, since there is no need to use the source image file (as in other cases).
Epilogue
As for the choice of software that can be used to emulate the “iron” drive, it all depends solely on how you plan to use the created device in the future. By and large, the built-in Windows tool will be enough for ordinary reading or copying data. If you need to perform any additional operations that are not provided for the system tools, of course, you will have to use third-party programs. However, keep in mind that after installing the virtual drive programs described above, the system tool will be blocked automatically and replaced exclusively by the installed utilities.
Note: pay special attention to the removal of the presented programs if they become unnecessary, because some of their components may not be removed, and then when trying to open image files using the built-in Windows tools, error messages will be displayed.