FarStone Technology Introduces VirtualDrive Utility for Education and Enterprise Applications

VirtualDrive™, a revolutionary new CD-ROM emulation application

Irvine, California November 14, 2000— VirtuaDrive is a CD-ROM emulation application that will turns CDs' into Virtual CD-ROM (VCD) that will run on a VirtualDrive just like a physical CD-ROM and drive. With VirtualDrive you can create up to 23 Virtual CD-ROM drives, which are accessible through Explorer just like any other drive. Finding CD-ROMs is no longer a problem and the need to physically load CD-ROMs into a drive, wait for a CD-ROM drive to start up or change CDs by hand in order to run other CD applications is eliminated. Just double click on the VCD icon and watch it run instantly.

VirtualDrive supports most CD formats, including CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Video CD, Mixed Mode CD, Photo CD, CD-Extra and Audio CD. With VirtualDrive, you can run CD-ROMs directly from the hard drive with incredible 200X speed. This increased access speed makes programs and games run smoother and faster.

VirtualDrive™ does not copy hundreds of thousands of files from the CD-ROM. Rather it creates a VCD file on the hard drive,therefore, only this file needs to be added, removed, hidden or archived. VirtualDrive™ incorporates a high performance compression engine that can typically compress two to three CDs per VirtualDrive. Auto de-compressing occurs when the VCD file is accessed.

You can access VirtualDrive using the command line interface. With this feature you can mount VCDs and Auto-Run selected applications or view archived files.

VirtualDrive™ is ideal for notebooks. No physical CD-ROM drive or CD-ROM is needed, giving enhanced power performance and failsafe file archiving. Battery life is extended since a CD-ROM drive does not have to be used. Each Virtual CD drive does not take any appreciable amount of HDD space. However, 19KB of RAM memory is allocated for a VirtualDrive when a VCD is inserted.

VirtualDrive is also Network capable. Some CD-ROM applications only run (lock) from a CD drive and will not run on a mapped network drive. With VirtualDrive, VCDs can be shared across the network. CD drives are not necessary on every PC when using the network.

This version of VirtualDrive supports VCD files up to 32 Gigabyte in size and can contain up to 32,767 discreet files. VCD files created using this method are subject to the ISO 9660 standard. VirtualDrive™ comes with Far Stone's "Rapid Cache" CD-ROM caching system, utilizing the latest in incremental caching technology. Rapid Cache can reduce VCD and CD-ROM access times by up to 75%. Rapid Cache is completely transparent to your system therefore won't interfere with other caching programs or memory managers.

About FarStone

Founded in 1993, FarStone Technology is a leading developer of PC and network-based digital content security, replication and management solutions. FarStone is an ISO 9001 certified software publisher holding multiple technology patents. The technology was created to enable computer users to achieve maximum productivity through improved security and performance. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., the company licenses its software to corporations, small businesses, educational institutions and consumers worldwide. FarStone's global technology partners include Intel, NEC, Phoenix Technologies and Toshiba.