List of Mounting / Virtual (CD/DVD) drive software supporting Windows 7

Daemon Tools (Free / Paid)

Daemon tools is one of the oldest and widely used software in this category. There are 2 versions of this product available, as both free and paid-ware. Supports Windows XP / Vista / 7 (x64/x86).

Daemon Tools

Since the time they have started to sell a paid copy of the product, the free version has started to pack some bloatware like browser tool bars and certain add-ons. However you would be presented with options under custom installation to install the software without these add-ons. Where as the paid versions allows you to create 32 virtual drives supporting Blue-Ray also.

The free version wights around 9MB in size and the Advance version costs around 40 Euro.

Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% (Paid)

It was meant as a burning software but became popular for its ability to create and load virtual disc images.

The Alcohol 120% is also known for this ability to read from scratched or damaged discs. It allows you to create upto 31 virtual drives and has a support for wide range of operating systems, supporting Windows 2k, XP (x64 / x86), Server 2k3 (32bit / 64bit) / Server 2k8 (x86 and x64), Vista (x86 and x64), Windows 7 (32bit / 64bit).

One may obtain a time limited trial version of this software before purchasing the full version at Euro 40.

PowerISO (Paidware)

Another software originally made as a CD / DVD burner, but have succeeded more as a mounting software.

Power ISO Although the software itself is a paidware but the actual mounting support is given free as an add-on download. The software supports a wide range of imaging format, including .DAA (Direct-Access-Archive is an advanced format for image file) files. This is the only software in this list which supports Windows 98 and Windows ME along with all above version of windows, both 32 and 64bit.

The software retails at USD 30 and allows a time limited full featured trial via their trial download given at their website.

MagicISO (Paid) / MagicDisc (Freeware)

Once again another burner turned virtual drive software. The MagicISO provides a free independent add-on called MagicDisc.

The software retails at around USD 30, where as the MagicDisc is offered free. One may also try out their trail version of the burning software MagicISO.

MagicISO / MagicDisc supports almost al versions of Windows, starting fro Win98 to 64bit version of Win7 and Server 2k3 R2 (Beta).

Virtual Clone Drive (freeware)

Virtual CloneDrive Arguably the best free solution available for virtualizing the CD or DVD image files. It supports almost all imaging format like ISO / Bin / CCD and allows you to create upto 8 virtual drives.

One of the popular feature of this software would the context menu add-on which allows you to mount or unmount an image file by just right clicking on it.

The Virtual CloneDrive weights just a couple of MB and can be downloaded free. It supports Windows 98 to Windows 7 including both 32 and 64bit version of it.

By the way, what are the use of these software in real life computing ?

It is possible that the question may pop up to those who are not used to using virtual disc drives, as whats the purpose of these software.

Now days, as we have bigger hard discs, would not it be easy to make an image of the disc you need and keep it in your hard drive. In that way, you can avoid physical ways of changing discs from drives and in case you are a notebook user, then you don’t have to carry so many discs either.

Just one thing to keep in mind. Not every End user license may allow you to make an image of your disc.

Windows 7

If you know about any software supporting Windows 7 (x64) which I have missed to list here, please do post a comment to let me know.

Choto Cheeta on December 8, 2009 | Filed Under Software, Virtualization

11 Comments

mountthis on December 8th, 2009

Here’s another, paid, variety. I’ve used all those listed in the article. Winmount is my current favorite.

Choto Cheeta on December 8th, 2009

mountthis:

Here’s another, paid, variety. I’ve used all those listed in the article. Winmount is my current favorite.

Hello,

The first impression was not quite right. I mean the software is claiming to have a 100% clean certificate of softpedia, but strangely, softpedia doesn’t list the software itself.

Anyway, thanks for pointing.. Its a USD 50, possibly the costliest, but the only software claiming to have support for Windows Mobile OS (??)..

Thanks.

Saqib on December 10th, 2009

Good article Chotocheeta. Daemon tools is my favorite. BTW, I have used PowerISO and its also very good. And compatible with Win 7

Choto Cheeta on December 10th, 2009

Saqib:

Good article Chotocheeta. Daemon tools is my favorite. BTW, I have used PowerISO and its also very good. And compatible with Win 7

Hello,

If possible then give Virtual CloneDrive a try and share your feed back on it.

Its free and just 1.5MB download, I am sure, if you have liked PowerISO, then Virtual Clone Drive would also impress you

Thanks..

Cary on December 17th, 2009

Daemon Tools used to be my favorite, but it will not install on Win7 x64 Ultimate. I downloaded MagicISO to try and 5 minutes later I had a working tool.

With that said, I am looking for a Win7 compatible Virtual CD emulator that I can burn to. I have a couple of apps that force burning to CD and I’d rather not waste discs. I found something by Ztekware, but it doesn’t appear to have been updated in some time, so I don’t want to be the guinea pig.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Choto Cheeta on December 17th, 2009

Hi Cary,

Daemon tools do support Windows 7 x64.

Please make sure you are running it with full admin privilege.

Thanks.

Cary on December 17th, 2009

So I’ve read, however, after two (2) weeks of fooling around with it, I can definitely state that there are issues with it. I have been working with support for over a week and they can’t figure it out either. SPTD refuses to install from the DT installer, so I’ve had to install it manually. I have also tried the free version and the full version, both spit out errors and refuse to create virtual drives.

As mentioned, MagicISO on the other hand, installed perfectly the first time and just worked. But, neither of them are able to create real Virtual CD’s that I can point an application at to “burn”. You know of anything that works with Windows 7. I found TotalMounter at KernSafe.com that looks like a GREAT application, but it doesn’t support Win7.

Choto Cheeta on December 19th, 2009

Hi Cary,

One thing I could not understand, what do you mean by “burning Virtual CD” ??

What is Virtual CD and would the difference between a Virtual CD and an image file file ISO / IMG / DAA or NRG and such ??

Thanks

Cary on December 22nd, 2009

Choto,

I do not want to use an actual CD to burn to. I need an application that simulates a physical CD (i.e. a virtual CD) being mounted.

For example, let’s say that MagicISO supported the feature that I am asking for. I would start MagicISO and then command MagicISO to mount a “blank CD”. Then I would point my application at that blank CD and it would think it is a real physical CD and allow me to burn to it. All the while, an ISO would be created in the background.

The idea is that the Virtual CD would fake out applications to make them think they are burning to a real CD.

Does that explain it better? Thanks!

Cheers…

Shahnawaz on January 18th, 2010

One Software you have forgotten to mention is Virtual CD http://www.virtualcd-online.com.Although it is a paid software but it has many extra features and its setup is too large as compared to the above mentioned softwares.Do have a look.
Alcohol 52% being free and with capability of making disc image is the best one.

TimP on February 9th, 2010

Have You ever tried TotalMounter in compatibility mode?
If You’ve never done this, it’s very simple, only right-click on the exe and then on “Solve compatibility problems”, or so. You can do it too from the Compatibility tab in the Properties window.
Please let me know if it works, I’m looking the same than You

Choto Cheeta Online