Lets compare gadgets technology: It?s Virtually Real: Virtual Drive for Windows

First of all, I have settled into my schedule of posting a new entry every fortnightly Monday. I hope to someday turn this into a weekly column, but I do not yet have the resources to do so.

Secondly, this week’s article touches a bit on virtual drives for Windows. So those that aren’t too interested in this subject can come back in two weeks.

And now, on with the article.

Some of you may have problems running ISO files. Or maybe you want your computer to read data from a DVD/CD at a faster rate than normal. Both of these can be accomplished by creating virtual drives in Windows.

Before we continue, let me explain what ISO files and virtual drives are. ISO files are read by a computer as an image file, although they may actually be files of any kind. Files are normally converted into ISO format for security or transportation purposes, since it makes it easier to burn data onto DVDs, VCDs, or CDs, or to transfer it across a network.

A virtual drive is kind of like a space in your computer that acts like another hard drive. They have the same read/write speed as a hard drive, which means accessing data in virtual drives is faster compared to accessing data from your CD/DVD reader. You can put practically any data into virtual drives. So if you were to put the contents of your DVD-ROM into a virtual drive, that game with obscene loading times should look more appealing.

To interact with ISO image files, and to read discs in your DVD reader faster than normal, you can use a virtual drive. There are two ways to do this. The first way is old-school where you enter lines of code in the command prompt a.k.a. DOS. The second way involves downloading software and configuring the software. I will try to explain both ways.

First way goes through ye olde command prompt (note these set of instructions are for Windows XP);

Step 1: Open the command prompt. You can do this by clicking the ‘Start’ button on the taskbar, opening the Run dialog box, and typing ‘cmd’. Or you can just select Command Prompt from the Accessories list.

Step 2: Type the following command to create your virtual drive (note that this command is an example. Explanations follow):

subst z: "C:Files"

And you’re done.

The command ‘subst’ is what creates the virtual drive. ‘z’ is the name of the drive you want to create. Be aware that you should not choose a letter that is already an existing drive in your computer. For most machines, ‘a’ is reserved for diskettes, ‘c’ is reserved for the main hard drive, and ‘d’ may be for the CD/DVD reader. To be safe, you can name your virtual drive as ‘z’, and if you have to make more virtual spaces, proceed backwards across the alphabet.

In the example above, the entire contents of ‘Files’, located in drive ‘c’, will be copied into the virtual drive named ‘z’.

Say for example that my DVD reader is named ‘d’ and I want to copy everything into a virtual drive, so that the computer can access the data much faster. I will just type this in the command prompt:

subst z: "D:Stuff"

The basic structure of the command looks like this:

subst destination_drive: "source_drive:source_folder"

Replace the terms ‘destination_drive’, ‘source_drive’, and ‘source_folder’ with what you need. If you’re really into this kind of thing, you can enter more lines to further configure your virtual drive.

Now to do this by software. There are several which can be downloaded for a price, but I picked a free one, very basic, without autorun features or self-configuration. You will need to follow the instructions carefully (but at least it’s free). By the way, this is for Windows XP again.

Step 1: Go to http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/xpvirtualcd.html and click the link ‘Click here to Download’. This will take you to the download page.

Step 2: Wait for the download dialog box to open, then save the file. If the box doesn’t appear, there is a link to download from microsoft.com which you can click.

Once you have downloaded the software, the scary part begins. If you follow the instructions precisely, there shouldn’t be problems. If you’re really scared, try this on another computer.

Step 3: You now have some files. One of them is named VCdRom. Copy this system file and paste it into your ‘Windowssystem32drivers’ folder.

Step 4: There is another file called VCdControlTool. Run this file (double click it or select it and press ‘Enter’/‘Return’). This will open a window with buttons.

Step 5: Click the ‘Driver Control…’ button. A new window will appear.

Step 6: Click the ‘Install Driver…’ button. It should be available. This will open a new window.

Step 7: Navigate in the window to the ‘Windowssystem32drivers’ folder.

Step 8: Remember the system file called VCdRom that you copied into the ‘drivers’ folder? From this window, select VCdRom, then click ‘Open’.

Step 9: Click the ‘Start’ button.

Step 10: Click the ‘OK’ button.

Step 11: Click the ‘Add Drive’ button. This will add a drive to the list in the window.

Step 12: Select the drive from the window, then click the ‘Mount’ button. This will open a new window.

Step 13: Navigate in this window to the where your ISO file is located.

Step 14: Once you have located your ISO file, click the ‘Open’ button.

All right, that’s it. A bit of a pain, but like I said it costs zero in currency. Any time you want to remove this drive, just run VCdControlTool again and select it, then press ‘Remove Drive’.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about unearthing deleted data using Pandora Recovery. The following comment was posted by suicidalsam who writes;

“does this software work on an ipod video 30gb?

“i had saved some important files in it using enable disk usage mode. now the ipod doesnt work. says, i need to format or restore the ipod. I fear doing so would delete all the files stored in my ipod. and if this software does work, will it damage my ipods hard drive after recovery is done?”

Unfortunately I do not owe an iPod (video or otherwise) to test this software upon. Further reading from the Pandora website has led me to conclude that this software does not appear to work for iPods. I did a Google search for recovery programmes that could help you. Most require payment, but I found one trial version that lasts for 30 days. The name is ‘iPod Recovery 3.0.1.5’ and is located at http://www.filecart.com/details/31654/540/iPod_Recovery.php. (Alternatively you can go to http://www.securitysoftwarezone.com/aac-sitesearch-.html and look around.) You can get the full version for $69.00, a bit expensive if you ask me.

Hopefully this helps. Good luck.

Until next time, feel free to be virtual.

Posted on 11. May, 2009 by Adrian in Freeware, Microsoft, Software, Utilities, Windows

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ONE COMMENT FOR IT’S VIRTUALLY REAL: VIRTUAL DRIVE FOR WINDOWS

Atlanta Private Investigator Says

12. May, 2009

Very nice explanation of virtual drives and some nice resources. Thank you for sharing.

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