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Mount ISO files as a Virtual CD / DVD drive

by | Sunday, 09th Sep 2007 | 64 Comments | Share

Many a times when you download software you will get it as a ISO or a CD image file formats which are just a image of the actual CD drive. An ISO file needs to be burned on a CD or DVD so that you can use or install the software.

For those who do not have a CD / DVD burner this may cause a lot of problems as those files will be rendered as useless.

If you are one of those who do not have a CD / DVD burner or do not want to burn the image on a CD / DVD but still want to make those use the files inside the image you can do that with the help of MagicDisc.

MagicDisc Virual CD/DVD-ROM is a freeware that allows you to mount ISO files as a virtual CD or DVD drive.

You can mount up to 15 virtual CD / DVD drives using MagicDisc. In addition to this you can also create a image file (ISO) from a existing CD or DVD. Usage is pretty simple. Once you have installed the software. It will show up as a tray icon like shown below.

magicdisc-tray

Right clicking on the icon will load a new menu using which you can mount or unmount and image files as a virtual CD / DVD drive. Selecting the virtual drive will show you options to mount or unmount the drive.

magicdisc-virtual magicdisc-virtual-mount

Clicking on mount will open a file dialog from where you can choose the image file and mount it as a virtual drive and will appear in your Windows Explorer. You can then install the software or copy the files using the mounted drive. Once you have finished use of the mounted drive you can simply click on the Unmount option to unmount the drive.

This is a very useful software as it supports many different types of image files along with supporting the default ISO files

  • BIN (CDRWin)
  • IMA/IMG (Generic disk images)
  • CIF (Easy CD Creator)
  • NRG (Nero – Burning ROM)
  • IMG/CCD (CloneCD)
  • MDF/MDS (Fantom CD)
  • VCD (Farstone Virtual Drive)
  • VaporCD (Noum Vapor CDROM)
  • P01/MD1/XA (Gear)
  • VC4/000 (Virtual CD)
  • VDI (Virtuo CD Manager)
  • C2D (WinOnCD)
  • BWI/BWT (BlinkWrite)
  • CDI (DiscJuggler)
  • TAO/DAO (Duplicator)
  • PDI (Instant Copy)

MagicDisc will work on Windows 9x / Me / 2000 / XP / 2003 and Vista based PC for 32 bit version and Windows XP / 2003 and Vista 64 bit editions.

Let me know if you found this software useful. Your comments are always welcome.

Download MagicDisc Virtual CD/DVD-ROM.

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I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.

Keith Dsouza has written

The author of this post can be contacted at keith@techie-buzz.com

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Browse Comment Pages: 1 2 3
  1. Madhur Kapoor on September 11th, 2007 at 6:30 am #

    I currently use daemon tools. It does the job well .

  2. Jenny on March 5th, 2008 at 2:16 pm #

    I use this and it does work.

    • cheapest k cups on August 13th, 2011 at 10:44 am #

      it works like a charm — but windows 7 giving a virus error because digital signature has expired, can u help

      • Keith Dsouza on October 6th, 2011 at 8:53 pm #

        It is not a virus alert. Windows 7 is showing an alert because the driver is not signed digitally, however, you can ignore that alert and install the drivers.

  3. yuki on July 9th, 2008 at 4:46 pm #

    thanks i was clueless

  4. Anurag on September 20th, 2008 at 11:33 am #

    Magic Disc Is Really Cool..
    But My Fav is Daemon Tool…
    You can Give it A Try…
    http://www.pcdrome.com/2008/07/play-games-without-dvd-use-daemon-tools/

    -Anurag R. C.
    http://www.pcdrome.com

  5. parham on November 12th, 2008 at 8:35 pm #

    It’s cool… I wonder why I hadn’t tried it before!!

    It does the job silently! I liked it.

  6. Russ on January 11th, 2009 at 3:08 pm #

    Hello I have some problems with that. When I click mount I only get my external blank hard drive to mount, not the DVD in my CD/DVD player. Any help?

  7. Mike on March 16th, 2009 at 10:02 pm #

    Russ, why would you want to use a program that allows you to define a drive letter for a disk image that is on your hard drive? Just access the DVD directly.
    The idea of this software is if you have an image file of a DVD, not the real DVD, it allows you to access that file as if it is a real DVD drive with that disk installed.
    Lets say you had a DVD with a bunch of clip-art. You could make an ISO image of that disk and save it to your hard drive. Then you “mount” the image as a drive letter say E:. Now you can simply access E: to use your clip-art and the DVD can be put away forever. This is a good way to protect your DVDs against damage because you never use them more than once.

  8. Chriss on March 17th, 2009 at 10:50 pm #

    a bit off-topic: In the first taskbar image, there is a little graphic. well for what is that ? I really need a program which could make a graph of hard-disk usage in the tray. maybe you could help me ? Thanks.

    • Keith Dsouza on March 17th, 2009 at 11:05 pm #

      @Chriss the graph icon is for Process Explorer a task manager replacement for Windows, if you are looking for a Hard Disk graph created check out our article about HDGraph

  9. Chriss on March 18th, 2009 at 9:00 pm #

    @Keith Dsouza
    Wow Process Explorer is the tool that I looked for ages ! I like it so much, especially because I can choose what graph to show in tray, window transparency and for the option to replace standard Task Manager.
    However I use it mainly to have a quick view about hard-drive activity (I/O History). I hope it autostarts with windows, otherwise I’ll put a shortcut in the Startup folder :)). And if it doesn’t start minimized, I’ll use The Wonderful Icon to start-up it minimized to tray. I haven’t yet restarted my PC, later I may say if it worked :)
    Thanks a lot for the info.

  10. blabla on May 31st, 2009 at 3:43 pm #

    Many thanks!

  11. Matt Kendrick on July 15th, 2009 at 2:23 pm #

    Awesome review. Awesome tool. I like the fact, you don’t have to reboot after installing.

  12. Jonathan Dingman on August 31st, 2009 at 8:25 pm #

    Going to agree with everyone above, I love Daemon Tools — been using that for ages.

  13. Paddy on September 18th, 2009 at 1:41 am #

    Thanks Keith. It was a gr8 help. kkep up the good work

  14. Alex on October 3rd, 2009 at 3:09 am #

    I will say this program is the best i had a game i download grand theft auto IV and i need to mount it and demon did’t do it because i had to get a dvd burner or DVD-Drive this program makes a drive it self and u can mount the image easy 5 Star program thank you

    Work 100%

    • hassan on January 14th, 2012 at 9:22 pm #

      where did you get GTA IV????? I really need it!!!

  15. Joshj5hawk on October 22nd, 2009 at 10:53 pm #

    this is an awesome tool. Deamon is nice, but this is free and works just as well. Thanks for the tool and review =]

  16. Philip on January 5th, 2010 at 5:36 am #

    I agree with most about Daemon tools. I my opinion it is the best software. However I aggree with Matt, I hate having to reboot after installing.
    But that only happens every year or so when I format the main drive and set Windows up again.

  17. Nitin on January 29th, 2010 at 11:03 am #

    This works… easy and smooth!

  18. Mass on March 12th, 2010 at 10:50 pm #

    That was very informative, and well-presented.

    Thanks alot

    Appreciated..

    salute!

  19. daniel on March 20th, 2010 at 12:45 am #

    thanks it helps me a lot.

  20. orumcek stand roll u on March 24th, 2010 at 2:03 pm #

    I think Daemon Tools Lite is the best Virtual CD program for everyone.. Easy interface, small usage of RAM..

  21. Indian Art on March 28th, 2010 at 7:50 am #

    Could you please let me know if this can be done on the Ubuntu OS?

  22. bb on April 1st, 2010 at 11:10 pm #

    Way better than ISODisk, definite dl

  23. Not in this world on April 12th, 2010 at 12:49 pm #

    It really works, thanks a lot!

  24. TRSteep on April 17th, 2010 at 2:26 am #

    very good util!

  25. Edo on April 25th, 2010 at 4:46 pm #

    It helps 100%
    Thank you

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