!#8# Put Away That Expensive CD and DVD - Use A Virtual Drive

!±8± Put Away That Expensive CD and DVD - Use A Virtual Drive

Use of a virtual drive will save your original media from accidental damage.

In the computing world there are a lot of 'virtual' devices. Virtual Drives emulate a physical drive; it could be a CD ROM or DVD. You make a copy of the CD or DVD store it on your hard drive and when you need it you 'mount' the copy or image of the original instead of putting the disk in a physical drive. The emulator is not limited to the speed that a physical CD or DVD drive, it has the same speed as the hard drive it is stored on. Although for a network share the limiting factor will be the speed of the network that the computer is connected to.

There is a problem with some programs though; the publishers of Games have software on the disk that prevents either coping or verification of the disk. This means that if you have a game on a cd and the cd is required to start the program then using an image will not work. There are different schemes for securing the cd from hidden tracks to hidden keys for the program to read when it starts.

For normal programs that you have that are of high value or that your business installs on a regular basis a Virtual Drive program would be very useful. With the program you could make an image of the program disk, store it on a server and then mount the disk and share the virtual drive for access to those individuals that do you installs.

Another use for a Virtual Drive is for experimentation. You could lay out your cd or dvd and make an image of the data to see if it will work with out burning an actual disk. With the price of disks these days that may seem to be a bit too frugal but consider the time factor and if it isn't the way you want it to be or you want to add more to the disk then deleting an image does make economic sense.

How does it work? There are a lot of different programs that do CD or DVD emulation, one of them is called Daemon Tools, another is called FarStone Virtual CD. Both are excellent programs that will create and mount a cd or a dvd. The first step is to create the image. Then you mount it or insert it in the emulation. Then you would use it the same as any other media. You could take a list of unrelated directories and make an image such as for a custom computer install, instead of having four or five cd's with the installation files create one image with all the installation files. Then mount the image and share it across a network making the configuration of multiple computers at one time possible with out handing out separate sets of media to each technician doing computer installs.

If you are a 'road warrior' and fly a lot you could make images of your favorite audio cd's or make images of movies, mount it while you are in flight and you have a movie or your favorite music. You are not limited to just programs when you make an image, you can make images of an Audio or video cd or dvd. The possibilities are limitless.