Best Free CD / DVD Emulation Software
Wed, 12/31/2008 - 08:31 — Jojoyee
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Introduction
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Having CD/DVD emulation software works like having multiple CD/DVD ROM drives.
The emulation software allows users to run a CD/DVD image directly from a hard disk after mounting the image to a virtual disk drive. This works the same as or even better than the traditional way for users to run a CD/DVD from a physical disk drive after mounting the CD/DVD onto it.
Depending on the emulation software, the number of virtual disk drives can be easily set to more than 10 or 20 at no extra cost, while the number of physical disk drives is usually limited to one that was bought as part of the PC.
Most users use this software for some objectives such as:
Serving the objectives, these free CD/DVD emulation software tools, or emulators, are reviewed and rated based on the following features:
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Discussion
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 Gizmo Drive is good emulation software which allows you to mount a disk image in ISO or other formats to a virtual drive using its driver. When an image is mounted, it appears as an actual CD/DVD-ROM drive or hard drive in Windows Explorer.It supports up to 26 virtual drives. Other types of images which can be mounted include VHD, IMG, BIN, CUE, NRG, CCD, MDS, MDF and GDRIVE.
In addition to mounting images to virtual drives, Gizmo Drive allows you to create ISO images from a disk or folder, and burn the contents of an ISO file or a folder to a recordable disk. It comes with a Gizmo Manager and Image Wizard to perform the various tasks.
User interface of this program is informative and helpful. Other additional features include creating a DGRIVE image for simulating a hard drive with compression and encryption, creating a virtual hard drive backed by system memory for better performance in accessing time sensitive data, etc.
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 MagicDisc, also known as MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD-ROM, is another emulator designed for creating and managing virtual CD/DVD drives.It allows you to run many types of CD/DVD images without burning them onto CDs or DVDs. It also allows you to create CD/DVD images from CDs/DVDs and save them into various formats including ISO, BIN/CUE, NRG, UIF.
This program with a simple interface supports up to 15 number of virtual disk drives.
Other features are available such as compress ISO, NRG, CUE, MDS and CCD formats into UIF format, or decompress UIF format into ISO format. The feature for burning images to disks is not supported.
 Another easy-to-use emulator is Virtual CloneDrive. It allows you to double-click an image file to mount it to a virtual drive.This program adds a Windows Explorer context menu for mounting and unmounting the images as well. In this version under review, it has increased the number of virtual drives up to 15, same as the number supported by MagicDisc.
Mountable image formats include ISO, CCD, IMG, UDF, BIN, etc., but NRG, MDF/MDS and some other formats are not supported. The program comes with a Virtual Sheep option which is designed to mark all virtual drives created by the software with its icon, so that you can differentiate them from the physical drives.
Auto-mounting the last image is also included as one of the options. On the down side, Virtual CloneDrive does not provide other features such as creating images from or burning them to disks.
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Other CD / DVD Emulators
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Disk Image Formats
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These are some image formats used by the emulation software for mounting images to virtual CD/DVD drives or other devices.
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| ISO | Standard ISO image file, supported by most emulation software. | |
| BWT | BlindWrite image file | |
| CCD | CloneCD image file | |
| CDI | DiscJuggler image file | |
| CUE/BIN | Cuesheet/Binary image file, introduced by CDRWIN. | |
| GDRIVE | Gizmo Drive image file | |
| IMG | Floppy disk image file | |
| MDS/MDF | Media Descriptor image file, proprietory to Alcohol Soft. | |
| NRG | Nero Burning ROM image file | |
| PDI | Instant CD/DVD image file | |
| UDF | Universal Disk Format, developed by Optical Storage Technology Association. | |
| UIF | Universal Image File | |
| VHD | Virtual Hard Disk image file | |
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Related Products and Links
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2.6 
Unrestricted Freeware 
Windows 2000 to Vista
This software category is maintained by volunteer editor Jojoyee. Registered site visitors can contact him by clicking here.
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try magic disk
correction- Try Macicdisc
Alcohol 52% free version is good. 6 virtual drivers are enough for me, and it can create high-quality clone of your CD.
Love PowerISO check it out!
its not free
You can definitely get it for free. I have it and it works decently.
I do however like Daemon Tools better. It runs faster smoother, and better interface for emulation
Daemon Tools is also a great free CD Emulator with up to 4 virtual drives. It is a lot like the Alcohol 120's CD Emulator.
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php?catid=5&mode=ViewCategory
I have used Daemon for several years and it works very well. It never cause me any problems.
Drew
Daemon Tools comes bundled with a Trojan. I can't remember the file name, but AVG picked it up.
Are you sure that AVG is right; might it not be finding code that could potentially be trojan, but isn't? Why not check with more than only AVG, too? AVG would be claiming a trojan's found by running heuristics, I think, and if this is true, then maybe AVG is just reporting a false alert. Or did it find a specifically known trojan?
Mike Corbeil
Quebec, Ca
Just type "daemon tools trojan" into google. There is definitely something suspicious going on with their code. My anti-spyware program also had issues with it.
Looks like it comes with some ad-ware, not a trojan. Just be careful when you install it.
Stop wearing out your CD/DVD'S
I use 2 CD/DVD emulators.
I have found Alcohol 52% to work well with some of my higher end games and DVD's the drawback being the free version has a limited number of virtual drives available. 6 allowed.
http://trial.alcohol-soft.com/en/
MagicISO
If you were fortunate enough to download the older free version of MagicISO, then you don't have to contend with the 300 MB restriction that has been implemented in the current available versions. The free version I use works well with allot of my older game CD'S
Download MagicISO from FileHippo.com
There is another emulator I found called VirtualCloneDrive_5411. I downloaded it from fileforum. It installed with no problem (Winxpsp3). Does what it says from what I can see. Does not have the bells and whistles of MagicISO or Alcohol 52%
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Virtual_CloneDrive/1224002998/1
Why not get virutal clone drive from the source. you'll get the most uptodate verson that http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html
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