What Is a Virtual Disk Drive?
A virtual disk drive is a non-physical drive created by a CD emulator like Virtual Drive. It is used to play disc images, or virtual disks. A virtual disk contains all the contents of a CD or DVD, but is in fact an electronic file.
Although Windows recognizes a virtual drive drive as a regular CD-ROM drive and assigns it a drive letter, a virtual disk drive operates directly on the hard drive. With most CD emulators, virtual disk drives are assigned drive letters (1 - 23), limiting the total number of virtual disk drives. A virtual disk can remain pre-loaded in a virtual CD drive for quick launch, or it can be “inserted” by dragging and dropping.
About Virtual Disks
A virtual disk is an image file of a CD. Unlike a physical CD, a virtual disk runs on the hard drive. A virtual disk holds the contents of an entire CD, and not just a single track. While virtual disks can include music, they’re most often used for video games and disk-based applications.
Benefits of Virtual Disks
Virtual disks can’t be scratched or broken, and are easy to store and transport. Other benefits include:
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Optimal performance
Virtual disk drives have access rates up to 200 times faster than physical disk drives
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Reduced demand on system resources
Virtual disks eliminate the need for a CD-ROM drive and extend the charge of laptop batteries
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CD-DVD archiving
Organize your virtual disks in a searchable library
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Disk backup
Protect your CDs and DVDs from loss, theft, and damage by using high-quality disk images instead
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Multiple disc play
Pre-load up to 23 virtual disk drives and toggle back and forth between games or volumes of a CD set
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Portability and convenience
Transport your virtual disks on a laptop, an external hard drive, or even a USB key
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Custom virtual disk creation
Add documentation, expansion packs, multimedia, and images to your virtual disk and share it over a network
