Is There Such A Thing As A Virtual CD-RW?

[Markxxx]

I have looked on line and can find lots of virutal CD-ROM programs, even for free.

But I only found one “Total Mounter” which will allow a CD-RW to be virtual.

I tried the trial version but it doesn’t seem to work, at least not well. On all three computers I tried it on, it gives you the Blue Screen of Death and you have to do a system restore and an uninstall to get your comptuer(s) back

I would even be willing to pay for such a program that actually works.

Again I’m NOT for a virtual CD-ROM there are tons of those out there. I need a virtual CD-RW.

[Blake]

I don’t think they’d be common because there doesn’t seem to be any use for such a thing. Virtual CDs are useful for using applications that demand CDs to run without having to carry the actual CD.

CDRWs are good for creating large volume RAM that you can carry without a hard disk.

It seems that a virtual CDRW is the worst of all worlds. You still need the hard disk, but it won’t actually run any software either.

Can I ask what you intend to do with such a thing? We might be able to suggest a better alternative.

[pan1]

How is a virtual CD-RW different from say, creating a CD image?

Or are you trying to use files copied from a CD as an actual CD for purposes of foiling the copy protection requiring the disk to be present?

NOt criticizing the question, looking to know what you need to do so I can offer alternatives.

“Virtual Clonedrive” seems to do what you’re looking for. (Download.com)

[moldybread]

Have you checked alcohol 120% afaik this is the top virtual disk software

[HorseloverFat]

What? A CD-RW is a media for storing data. Typically, cdrom virtualization is there so you can use CDs without the physical disks, not to burn virtual discs - which makes zero sense.

Im guessing you are really asking “How do I make an iso to put into a virtual drive.” Virtual drives use a format called ISO typically to mount the disc.

I use DAEMON TOOLS as a virtual drive and I use CDBurnerXP to make ISOs of discs I own or make.

[JKilez]

Count me in as part of the “what you are asking for does not really make any sense, so could you please explain what it is you are trying to do” camp. My guess is that you are trying to do something similar to what HorseloverFat indicated.

[wierdaaron]

A long time ago I wanted to find a virtual CDRW or CDR thing just like the OP and found nothing.

The reason was because, at the time, all itunes downloads were DRMed and the only sure-fire way to get a DRM-free version out of them was the analog loophole: burn them to a music CD, then rip that music CD to an MP3. It worked, of course, but at the expense of a physical disk and the time and effort of dealing with it. If you could create a virtual CDRW drive that iTunes would think was a real one, you could “burn” the music to it, and then rip it from the virtual disk. It would be much faster, and wouldn’t require any physical media.

Now, most iTunes music is available without DRM so it’s not a problem for me anymore.

[cstamets]

@wierdaaron

A long time ago I wanted to find a virtual CDRW or CDR thing just like the OP and found nothing.

The reason was because, at the time, all itunes downloads were DRMed and the only sure-fire way to get a DRM-free version out of them was the analog loophole: burn them to a music CD, then rip that music CD to an MP3. It worked, of course, but at the expense of a physical disk and the time and effort of dealing with it. If you could create a virtual CDRW drive that iTunes would think was a real one, you could “burn” the music to it, and then rip it from the virtual disk. It would be much faster, and wouldn’t require any physical media.

Now, most iTunes music is available without DRM so it’s not a problem for me anymore.

But you could burn the music to a virtual cdrom and accomplish the same thing. Just delete the iso file when you’re done with it.

[Blake]

@wierdaaron

A long time ago I wanted to find a virtual CDRW or CDR thing just like the OP and found nothing.

The reason was because, at the time, all itunes downloads were DRMed and the only sure-fire way to get a DRM-free version out of them was the analog loophole: burn them to a music CD, then rip that music CD to an MP3. It worked, of course, but at the expense of a physical disk and the time and effort of dealing with it. If you could create a virtual CDRW drive that iTunes would think was a real one, you could “burn” the music to it, and then rip it from the virtual disk. It would be much faster, and wouldn’t require any physical media.

I still don’t get this.

The “expense of a physical disk” is what, a buck-oh-five for a CDRW? Which is almost certainly less than the cost of a virtual CDRW application.

And, at least on my machine, it’s faster to use an actual disk than to mount a virtual one.

[wierdaaron]

Back when I looked (years ago) there weren’t any “virtual cd-roms” that would act like a hardware CD-R that you could trick iTunes into using. Further, at the time a CDRW cost more, and since I never kept them on-hand (because they seemed to fail 70% of the time), they were 100% more expensive than any free application would be.

What the OP and back-then-me is looking for is nothing like daemon loader, things that mount isos as pretend physical drives. You cant just make a program save to an iso if it doesn’t want to (and iTunes doesn’t want to).

[BigT]

I didn’t think ISOs could even hold Audio CD data. When I made ISO copies of disks that needed to have audio tracks, I always had to encode the tracks as MP3s or something.

Anyways, I think I may have found one: Original CD Emulator. It has an option to work as a CD-RW drive.

I’m sorry that it is shareware. If you are doing something like what wierddave wanted to do, there are other options. All I will tell you is you can get software that records all the sound that comes out of your speakers for free. You just need to learn how to use it.

[HorseloverFat]

Theres about 100 ways to remove DRM from itunes tracks so you dont have to play with the lossy solution of writing to CD then recoding to whatever format. Even with a virtual drive that writes you still have a lossy solution.

http://www.google.com/search?q=remove+drm+from+itunes

[jackdavinci]

@HorseloverFat

remove drm from itunes - Google Search

Heh! The top result leads to this:

2. Noteburner 2
   This DRM removal tool actually installs a virtual CD-RW writer on your system that you can then use to remove DRM copy protection. Noteburner 2 works in conjunction with your favorite media playing software to burn DRM-free audio files onto a virtual CD; the only proviso in using this method is that your media player software has to have the facility to burn files to CD. Once the virtual burning process is complete you can then transfer the DRM-free files to any media/MP3 player.

[Bbusyb]

I was looking for something similar a while ago, though for a different purpose.

I’d just gotten a new Netbook, and wanted to make recovery DVD’s but to do so you needed an external DVD burner as the disks were not available as ISO’s.

I looked around and tried a lot of different solutions but most didn’t work as the majority of Virtual CD /DVD programs only allow you to mount Image files not act as virtual burners.

The only one I had success with and ended up using was Virtual CD. While its not free, the 30 Day free trail is full featured, so if you just need it for a one off, its a good product and if you waat to purchase it its not too expensive.

[The_Librarian]

Oops

[wierdaaron]

@jackdavinci

Heh! The top result leads to this:

What he said.

Also that any kind of “FairPlay” DRM removing aparatus that has ever come along has just been disabled in future iTunes releases. There would always be a brief window where those things could work, and then no longer.

And when they did work, if they weren’t using a virtual cdrw, they were using scripts and hooks to play the songs silently and record the silent audio as a new track, which is just as lossy as anything else.

So, yeah, not 100. Significantly less than 100. Often times, 100% less than 100.