A virtual drive, also called virtual disc or disk emulator, is a non-existing drive that does not physically exist in the computer. But the disk emulator is necessary tool for many people. You get a disc image of a popular video game, for example. it allows you to play the game without burning the image to a disc. Plus, many movie enthusiasts back up their DVD movies as ISO image, which is not a playable format. It also enables you watch the movies without discs. Many people prefer to use disk emulator more than physical disk, because disc image and virtual disk have better performance. They run faster than optical drives and are able to bypass the spinning up process, which is necessary for the optical drive. Moreover, it could protect DVDs and other discs. With a virtual drive, you can use the disc image as a real disc without damaging the original one. And you can set up dozens of separate them from one image file. Considering it is so important, we will talk about how to use it to mount disc images in this post.
Jan 06, 2020 To unmount the ISO files from the Virtual DVD Drive, right click on the drive and select âEjectâ. To burn the files to a physical CD, right click on the original file and select âBurn This Imageâ. For those still using Windows XP.
Part 1. Create disc image for Virtual Drive
Today, people almost could download anything from internet. If you need a video game or an operating system, you can download their disc images online easily. But if you already have a physical disc, you can create a disc image by your own. We recommend you using Tipard DVD Cloner, because it is one of the most stable ISO creators on market.
How to create disc image with Tipard DVD Cloner
Download the correct version of DVD Cloner from its official website and follow the on-screen instruction to install it on your PC. Insert the disc you want to back up into computer's optical drive and run DVD Cloner.
Step 2
Go to File menu and choose Load DVD option to load the entire DVD. After DVD loaded, you can preview the files and videos first. Then locate to bottom area of the interface and press the Full Copy button.
Choose your DVD drive from the Source drop-down list and ISO image from the Target drop-down list. Click on the Next button to continue.
Step 5
Here you can pick a location to save the disc image by clicking on the button with three-point icon in After Burning section.
Finally, click on the Start button to start creating disc image for virtual drive.
After a few minutes, you can get the ISO image file saved in the location you set in step 4. https://everselect.weebly.com/blog/text-editor-app-for-mac.
Part 2. How to mount disc image in Windows 7
Windows 7 and early versions do not have built-in virtual drive capacity, so you have to use a third party tool to mount disc images, such as DVDFab Virtual Drive.
Right-click on the disc image file and choose Mount option.
Step 2
If you already install the software in your Windows 7, it will appear on the available virtual drive list. Press DVDFab Virtual Drive to mount the disc image.
Then you can use the disc image as a physical disc, although there is no physical disc in optical drive.
Part 3. How to use virtual drive in Windows 8/ Window 10
Windows 8 and later versions support ISO mounting natively, so you do not need to download and install any software on your computer.
Right-click on the ISO image file and choose Windows Explorer from the Open with list.
Step 2
Then the disc image will show as a disc in a virtual disk. If it is a DVD movie image, you can play it in any media player supports DVD.
When you want to unmount the disc image, right-click on the virtual drive that the disc image is mounted in and choose Eject to unmount the disc image.
Part 4. How to mount ISO on a virtual drive on Mac
Apple has integrated virtual drive Mac in the operation system, so you can create a virtual drive through ISO image directly.
Locate to the folder contains the ISO image file and mount ISO file by double-clicking. If it is mounted successfully, you can find the disc image on your desktop like an inserted DVD.
Step 2
If double-clicking is not successful, you can go to Disk Utility. Choose Open Disk Image under the File menu and select the ISO file you want to mount. Then it will be mounted on your desktop. Disk Utility works for most disc image formats, including ISO, DMG and IMG.
Part 5. How to make a virtual drive under Linux![]()
Linux is a special operating system; but as Mac OS X, Linux is able to turn ISO image to a virtual drive natively.
Conclusion
Virtual drive has many benefits, so game players, movie enthusiasts and other people prefer the drive to optical drive and physical disc. In this article, we shared the basic methods to mount ISO images on virtual disc on different platforms. Windows 7 and earlier versions do not have the features, but there are many third party tools available. Windows 8/8.1, 10, and Mac OS X, Linux have embedded the virtual driver natively, so you can mount an ISO file by the built-in one directly. If you want to mount an ISO file on a virtual drive, you have to create an ISO file first. We recommend you using Tipard DVD Cloner to extract image from a disc, because this application has the capacity to create high quality ISO files.
Posted by Lily Stark to DVD
Follow @Lily Stark July 07, 2017 08:53
A virtual operating system of course needs a virtual hard disk to store its files and the major software companies each have their own implementations of a virtual hard disk. Oracleâs VirtualBox uses Virtual Disk Image (VDI), VMWare uses Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) and Microsoft products like Virtual PC, Windows XP Mode or Hyper-V use Virtual Hard Disks (VHD or VHDX). Virtual disk formats are sometimes interchangeable between products, VirtualBox for instance supports VDI, VHD, VMDK and a few more.
Sometimes it might be useful to read data or copy files from a virtual hard disk to your computer without booting into the virtual operating system. In that situation being able to open the virtual hard disk and read the contents is important. Also you might want to delete, move or add files to the virtual operating system in the same way, perhaps to perform repairs to a non booting system or run offline Windows updates.
Here we show you ways to open virtual disk images with both read and write access for major virtual disk file formats VDI, VHD and VMDK. They are separated into read only and read/write methods. Make sure your virtual machine software is not running before trying to open the disk image, it also works more reliably when there are no snapshots attached to the virtual disk.
Read Only Access for Virtual Disk Files (VHD, VDI or VMDK)
There are many different ways you can access the contents of a virtual disk without actually booting into the virtual operating system itself. Hereâs a selection of easy solutions.
1. 7-Zip (VHD, VDI and VMDK)
7-Zip is probably the most popular free archiver and it includes the ability to open VHD, VDI and VMDK disk images. You can easily extract whatever files are required from the virtual operating system using drag and drop or copying out with the Extract button.
To open a virtual disk right click on it and select Open archive from the 7-Zip context menu or open File Manager and manually browse for the virtual disk. Only single volume VDIâs are supported which means if there is more than one partition the VDI wonât open. Multi volume VHD and VMDK files are supported and the volumes will be shown numbered. In the image above 0 is the Reserved Boot partition, 1 is the main Windows partition and 2 is the Recovery partition.
Download 7-Zip
2. Passmark OSFMount (VHD and VMDK)
OSFMount can handle VHD and VMDK virtual hard disks but does not support the VDI files from VirtualBox. The virtual disks are mounted as drive letters in this program which means they behave much like an ordinary hard disk while connected, but are read only.
After installing and launching OSFMount, press the Mount new button, this will bring up the mount drive dialog. Click the button to browse for a virtual image file and a list of available partitions will be displayed, simply select the one you want to mount. To mount multiple partitions at once click the Mount all partitions radio button and all partitions will receive their own drive letter automatically. https://everselect.weebly.com/blog/gmail-calendar-app-for-mac-desktop. No other options need changing although you can choose a different drive letter if required.
Download PassMark OSFMount
3. PowerISO (VHD, VDI and VMDK)
Although PowerISO is a shareware program costing $29.95 the trial version can be used indefinitely and allows you to open and access disk image files, including VHD, VDI and VMDK images. The good thing about PowerISO is its ability to handle multi partition VDI virtual disks in addition to VHD and VMDK. Please watch out for the adware offered during install.
Install and open PowerISO, click the Open button and browse for the disk image to load. The next window will ask you to select which partition to import, you can only load a single partition at once but all partitions in the image file will be available. You can then drag and drop folders or files out of the window or click the Extract button and browse for a save location. The highlighted bar near the bottom of the window offers some basic information about the virtual disk file.
Download PowerISO
Read and Write Access for Virtual Disks (VHD, VDI or VMDK)
Being able to read and copy files from the virtual hard disk will probably be enough for many users, but there will be others that need to write files into the image without booting the operating system.
4. Mount VHD, VDI and VMDK Disk Images Using ImDisk Toolkit
ImDisk virtual disk driver creates and mounts virtual hard disks, optical disks and floppies. Although you can mount virtual hard disks the process is complicated because you need to know the location offsets for the virtual partitions. ImDisk Toolkit uses the ImDisk driver but has an easy to use interface making the whole process much simpler.
1. Download ImDisk Toolkit and install it, if you donât want to make use of the ImDisk RamDisk feature it can be deselected. Double click the âMount Image Fileâ desktop shortcut.
2. Drag and drop the virtual disk image onto the window or use the browse button to locate it. A drive letter will be preassigned which can be changed from the drop down, for just read access tick the Read-only box. When using multi partition images you can click on which one to mount from the list at the bottom. Click OK to mount the virtual drive to the selected letter.
The virtual drive will appear in Explorer like any other hard drive complete with read and write access. ImDisk Toolkit is able to mount static, dynamic and multipart virtual disk images.
Unmount VHD, VDI and VMDK files From ImDisk
During installation the ImDisk driver adds its own entry into Control Panel where you can create, mount and unmount virtual disks from the applet. To unmount a drive open âImDisk Virtual Disk Driverâ, click on the virtual drive and press the Remove button, right click and select Remove or press Delete.
An easier option if you allowed the context menu shortcuts to be installed is to open Computer or This PC, right click on the virtual drive and select Unmount ImDisk Virtual Disk.
This will automatically dismount the virtual disk and release the drive letter.
5. Mount VMDK and VHD images With The VMWare DiskMount Utility
If you are someone that primarily uses VMDK disk images then a dedicated disk mounting tool from VMWare themselves is a good option. The DiskMount utility can also mount multi volume VHD files for read and write but VDI is not supported. An issue for some users will be DiskMount is a command line only tool but it should provide a reliable way to access a VMDK for writing.
1. Download VDDK for vSphere 5.1.4 (Virtual Disk Development Kit) from VMWare, you will need to create an account at VMWare before downloading any files from their website. Do not download a newer VDDK version as the DiskMount utility wonât be included. Install VDDK.
2. Open a Command Prompt, the utility is located in the following location, for ease of use make it the current directory:
64-bit: cd 'C:Program Files (x86)VMwareVMware Virtual Disk Development Kitbin'
32-bit: cd 'C:Program FilesVMwareVMware Virtual Disk Development Kitbin'
3. The commands are quite simple, this one will mount the first volume in the virtual disk:
vmware-mount.exe [drive:] [path to vdisk]
The above will automatically mount the first volume in VirtualDisk.vmdk to drive V. To mount a volume which isnât the first in the virtual disk, add the /v:[number] argument. You can first check how many volumes are in the image with the /p argument:
vmware-mount.exe /p [path to vdisk]
vmware-mount.exe /v:[number] [drive:] [path to vdisk]
The first command above lists how many volumes are in the VHD file and the second mounts volume 2 to drive V:.
Unmount Virtual Images With VMWare DiskMount
To dismount a virtual drive from the system and free the drive letter use the command:
vmware-mount.exe /d /f [drive:]
Mount Virtual Images Easily With a DiskMount Script
For convenience we have created a simple batch script that will automatically mount the selected volume in a virtual disk to drive letter V:.
Download DiskMount Batch Script
Download the zip, extract it then drag and drop a VMDK/VHD file onto the Mount_Virtual_Disk.bat file. It will list the available volumes and ask which one you want to mount, press the corresponding number key and the volume will mount to the V: drive with read and write access.
Run the batch file again for the option to dismount the drive or execute Unmount_Virtual_Disk.bat to silently dismount. Note that the VDDK needs to be installed to the default location in Program Files for the script to work, or you can edit that, the number of selectable volumes and the assigned drive letter yourself.
6. Mount VHD, VDI and VMDK Disk Images Using Daemon Tools Lite
Due to several factors Daemon Tools probably isnât as popular as it once was, but the free Lite version is still a capable disk mounting tool for several types of disk images. In this case it includes read and write support for VHD, VDI and VMDK virtual hard drives.
Do be very careful during install as there is opt out adware to get past but make sure for ease of use to leave the virtual disk file associations enabled, that way you only need to double click on an image file to mount it. One drawback is Daemon Tools doesnât recognize multi volume disk images and will only mount the first available partition however many are present. The handy thing is you can easily mount up to 4 virtual disks with just a few mouse clicks.
Unmount Disk Images From Daemon Tools Lite
Thereâs a few ways to dismount a virtual drive from Daemon Tools. From the main interface mounted images are listed across the bottom and hovering over one will popup a red X, click it to dismount the drive. In the Images tab you can also right click and Unmount.
If you have enabled the tray icon from within the settings individual drives or all drives can be unmounted in one go, right click the icon and go to the Virtual devices sub menu.
Download Daemon Tools Lite
7. Mount a VHD Using Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 Disk Management
Microsoft introduced a way of mounting VHD files as virtual drives starting with Windows 7. Like many Windows features the option is not particularly well publicized and a bit hidden away.
1. Either type Compmgmt.msc into the Start Menu search box or right click Computer/This PC and click Manage.
2. In Computer Management click on Disk Management and let it enumerate the disks on the system. Then right click on Disk Management and select Attach VHD.
3. Browse for the VHD file or enter the path manually, Windows 8.1 and 10 users have the added option to mount Hyper-V VHDX images. Thereâs no need to tick the Read-only box unless you only want to read or extract files. Click OK when ready.
The VHD will be mounted and given a drive letter, if there are multiple partitions they will each be given additional letters. Mounted virtual drives will appear with pale blue icons in the lower pane of the Disk Management window as will the volumes in the upper pane.
The mounted virtual VHD will now be listed as a standard hard drive in Explorer with read and write access.
Detaching the Virtual Hard Disk
VHD files mounted in this way only stay mounted for the current session so when you reboot or shutdown the computer they will automatically be detached. To manually remove the VHD from the system, do the following.
1. Open Disk Management (Diskmgmt.msc or steps 1 â 2 above) and find the virtual hard disk you want to remove. Right click on the drive information in the lower window (where it says Disk #) and click Detach VHD.
2. Click OK to confirm the detach. Obviously make sure you do not tick the delete box as the VHD itself will be deleted.
You might also like:13 Free RAM Disk Tools Benchmarked for Read and Write SpeedHow To Access ISO Files Using an Archiver or Virtual Drive7 Ways To Write Protect or Deny Access to USB Drives10 Free Software to Mount ISO Image Files as Virtual Drives8 Free Tools to Test Read and Write Speed of USB Flash Drives
VHDX to VHD on windows 7 , how?
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Pazos11 months ago
I need to attach a VHDX in Windows 7, it seems there is no option.
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Combining two reliable applications has worked well, even restoring a crashed drive on an ancient laptop that had an IDE drive which none of my current machines accepted. First, I used the Macrium Reflect Recovery boot PE vers 3 for windows XP, booted into the laptop; then, I could access an external hard drive which I backed the entire disk to. Next, I moved that external drive onto a Win 7 machine, again accessed the backup image via Reflect, and converted the image to a .vhd. Next, thru windows Disk Management, I attached the vhd as a mounted drive, edited the boot files, then re-backed that up again with Reflect. Switching back again to the laptop, I booted the usb, this time to restore from the modified backup image onto the laptop drive. Last, I used the fix MBR feature before rebooting, and voila! The laptop was risen from the dead!
Install Dmg Windows 10Reply
HTS2 years ago
how do you open vbox files? thatâs all Iâm asking, nothing complicated.
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vbox files are xml, any text editor will do.
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Benur212 years ago
On 1. 7-Zip image, what is the file called 3?
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Iâve opened this file and itâs completely empty, so itâs a padding file as much as anything.
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David R2 years ago
You can also use diskpart (native windows command line utility) or Gizmo Manager.
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I am sorry to say this, but i had try ImDisk and it can not mount Single Dynamic VDI, with one partition it seems to mount it (but empty) with the other partition it gives an error and do not mount it.
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jmjsquared8 years ago
Mount Dmg Windows 10
Thanks hal9000. Very interesting reading, as usual.
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Great tutorial hal9000 as always, havenât used the feature myself only third party apps, which makes this a good read.
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