Virtual Disk Utility is a free software to create a virtual drive to securely manage your data. The software emulates a physical drive and you can encrypt & password protect it to store the data securely.
Installation:
Find Virtual Disk Utility by following the link. You will have to be registered with Dell Kace team. Download and install the software and you will find the screen as shown below when you finish the installation.
Use the options to create, mount and disconnect a virtual disk.
Using Virtual Disk Utility:
While you create the virtual disk, you can select to encrypt your drive and provide a passphrase which you need to remember to retrieve your data later.
Pick a drive letter to mount your virtual drive.
For simplicity, you can right click the virtual drive to unmount it. The drive can expand and shrink depending upon the storage space.
Disconnect your drive when you are finished working with your virtual drive.
Features:
·Secure data with a virtual drive
·Encrypt data files
·Cross platform solution – can be used on both Mac and PC
A virtual disk creates images of CD, DVD, Blu Ray etc without having them physically being there. You don’t have to have a CD/DVD drive or burn discs but the Operating System would start working as if there is an extra CD/DVD drive set up in your computer. It’s just as simple as that and has got tremendous advantages too.
Here I present you with 6 free Disc Emulator software that can help you do this virtualization.
Daemon Tools Lite:
Daemon Tools Lite is one of the popular disc emulator tools from Disc Soft. It creates simple disc image files.
After installation of Daemon Tools Lite there is a system reboot. And there will be a small icon that sits in the system tray. You can also have a shortcut icon in the desktop. Just mount the files with supporting file format and start working with it. The reading speed of your virtual drive would be 50x faster when compared to normal physical drives.
It supports a variety of formats such as .b5t, .b6t, .bwt, .ccd, .cdi, .cue, .mds, .nrg, .pdi, .isz (compressed ISO) and many types of copy-protection. Password protection of images, image compression etc are some other features of Daemon Tools Lite.
You can have up to 4 virtual drives with Daemon Tools Lite. It is a great piece of software to try. Follow the link to reach this free Disc Emulation tool.
Virtual CloneDrive:
Virtual CloneDrive is one awesome freeware that lets you emulate disc drives. It supports up to 8 virtual drives at the same time.
Installing the software is just as easy as that. It might ask some questions about install location or so. It’s very easy to use piece of software and works with ISO, CCD, DVD, IMG, UDF and BIN formats.
A simple double click would serve the purpose of mounting the respective image. If you need you can dismount it later. It supports 11 languages.
Considering it’s a freeware with 8 virtual drives and around 1.5MB size, I would say it’s pretty good. Save a lot of your time by simply accessing the virtual drive with Slysoft Virtual CloneDrive free software.
Phantom CD:
Phantom CD is yet another application that allows you to access a CD or DVD by means of a virtual drive. It works with ISO, BIN/CUE files.
It comes with a very basic interface and can mount the disc images for you and as with any other Disc emulator software that makes it much faster than accessing from physical disc drives.
But the limitation is that the tool can only work with ISO file and ISO files require a lot of space. If all you have to do is to mount ISO file, then Phantom CD is a good choice. Follow the link to reach Phantom CD free disc emulator software
WinCDEmu:
WinCDEmu is open source disc emulation software that allows mounting CD/DVD images by clicking the image files in Windows Explorer.
Just double-click on the image file and mount it to a new drive letter. You can mount as many images as you want. WinCDEmu supports ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, IMG file formats and runs on all Windows versions from WinXP to Win7.
Backup your image files with WinCDEmu free software.
ISODisk:
ISODisk is another disc image file tool. It can create up to 20 virtual CD/DVD drivers and runs on Win2000/XP/Vista.
You can mount ISO files up to 20 virtual drives simultaneously. The software also includes a tool to create ISO files from your CD and that way you can quickly create ISO file from your CD/DVD-ROM.
But ISODisk only accepts ISO file format is a limitation. Try ISODisk free disc emulation software by following the link.
MagicDisc:
MagicDisc is a great utility from MagicISO for creating virtual CD/DVD drives. You can have up to 15 virtual drives with this freeware. MagicDisc can make your program run 200x faster than from a conventional CD/DVD-ROM.
MagicDisc supports a number of file formats such as BIN, IMG, NRG, VCD, CDI, BWT etc. It can open, create, edit, extract, mount or burn ISO files to and from CD/DVD. Conversion of .bin to ISO file format and viceversa is possible.
The software also encrypts ISO image and compresses ISO image and that way you can greatly save your HDD space. The user interface supports drag-and-drop feature.
MagicDisc allows password protection also and you can safely store your Games, softwares, movies, music etc with this free disc emulator. Download MagicDisc by following the link.
Conclusion:
If you are a person constantly running applications from CD or DVD, then these free disc emulation software are for you. Try it out.
