Daemon Tools - Virtual DVD's

 

What?
Open a virtual DVD with a virtual drive
With what?
Daemon Tools Lite

Invisible
DVD

MUCH NEW LAPTOPS DOES NOT HAVE A DVD STATION MORE. YET YOU STILL CAN OPEN DVDs, EVEN IF IT COST YOU SOME TIME AND EFFORT.
The DVD is gradually out of date. Video and data files stay almost exclusively as digital files on hard drives. Annoying for those who have a large DVD collection. Converting all the discs to a video format is of course an option when it comes to movies, but older software and games were previously on a disc. Fortunately, a DVD, or any other disc, can also live virtual. To access these virtual disks, you need a virtual disk drive. I'll explain how to make and use one. At the back of this workshop you will find a box showing how to turn your own DVD or CD into a virtual variant.

Step 1 Choose the right tool from the long list of Daemon software.

STEP 1 / DOWNLOAD
There are many good programs to work with virtual disks, but Daemon Tools is undoubtedly one of the best known. The small piece of software is free to download from the website (www.daemon-tools.cc/downloads), even if you do not say that at first sight. In the long list, look for Daemon Tools Lite 4 (or on a newer version if available), and click the green download button. On the next page you can get the small program. The version you are looking for is completely free, so be careful not to accidentally get a trial version. It's not a disaster if you do, but for this workshop you do not need the other software.

Step 2 Stay alert for bloatware during installation and options to still pay for a license.

STEP 2 / BYPASS THE BLOATWARE
The installation of Daemon Tools is easy. Please note that when you walk through the wizard, you choose for the FREE LICENSE. For ordinary consumers, the program is free, after all. Also you should beware of the Special Offer (s). The installation software would like you to install and configure things like Search Protect as the homepage of your browser. Search Protect however is tiresome rubbish: so click SKIP! The wizard is now almost over and you do not have to worry about bloatware.

Step 3 Your computer will now have a free BluRay drive.

STEP 3 / NEW DRIVE
That the installation is successful, you can see through "this computer." There is now the icon of a BD-Rom station showing off. For your computer, it seems like you've connected a real disk drive. He will treat the drive accordingly. Of course you can not place a disc in the slot as you normally would. The drive only exists as software and you must also load it with software.
Therefore open Daemon Tools: a shortcut should now be on your desktop. The interface of the program is simple but unfortunately not advertising-free: ignore the right column. At the top you see the library of virtual disks you've already added before, at the bottom you can manage the amount of virtual drives. The top box is usually empty, in the bottom you will find the BluRay drive again.

Step 4 Insert a CD, DVD, or BluRay into the virtual drive with the help of the software.

STEP 4 / LOADING A DISC
To load a virtual disk, click the left icon with the green plus sign. Then navigate to the location where your virtual disk is stored. If you do not have virtual disks yet, then read a little bit further MAKING VIRTUAL DISKS. The disk appears in the catalog but is not yet loaded in the virtual drive. To do this, you must select the file in question and click on the green play icon.
Your disc will now be loaded or "mount", if you want to speak in jargon. Mounting can take some time. When the program is ready, the disk will appear in the virtual drive, and your computer will treat them further as a normal DVD in a real drive.

Step 5 You can (almost) create as many virtual drives as you want.

STEP 5 / MORE DRIVES
To remove the disc, use the gray stop button. The other buttons allow you to add and remove drives. That's one of the benefits of virtual drives: you make as much as you want (a free version often has a limit of 4 drives). Adding a disk drive is done by clicking on the disk icon with the green plus. You can choose from a DT or a SCSI Virtual Drive. For most uses, the difference is not important, but to create a new SCSI drive, you must restart your computer. So, just choose for a BT Drive. You can use different drives at once, just like true drives. In practice, one copy is sufficient for most purposes.

MAKING VIRTUAL DISKS

Step 1 Convert a DVD to an image on a computer with a physical disk drive and Daemon Tools.

STEP 1 / SELECT SOURCE FILE
Virtual discs to load in your virtual drive can be created by yourself, with daemon tools. That's not hard, but of course you need a computer with a real DVD, CD or BluRay drive. First, place the disk for which you want a software copy in your physical drive. Then open Daemon Tools and select the icon with the image of a disk and a small floppy disk. The button is called MAKE DISH IMAGE. In the dialog that follows, you must select the drive. In TARGET IMAGE FILE choose the location where you want to save the final result. By default, the file type is set to mdx, but .iso is a better choice. The rest of the settings you do not have to change.

Step 2 A disk conversion can take a while on slower hardware.

STEP 2 / CREATE VIRTUAL DISK
You can now create your virtual disk or image by clicking on Start. A progress window will now appear. Once the process is complete, you will get a file that you can open in a virtual drive as described earlier in this workshop. Virtual disks have many advantages: You can save your collection to an external hard drive, which takes less space, they work faster than an ordinary DVD, and some media players can even read .iso files from a USB stick and playback on your TV. Although creating virtual discs are perfectly legitimate, some discs are protected to prevent abuse. Unfortunately, those DVDs or Blu Rays can not be converted.