There are still some useful CD-ROM titles for libraries. Most of these are games for children. Some reference CD-ROMs are published on multiple discs, making it inconvenient to change discs frequently. To avoid wear and tear to physical drives and discs, it is useful to copy the contents of a CD or DVD to a computer's hard drive.
There are several free programs that create virtual CD drives on a Windows XP system. Two that have been tested with library CD titles are:
- MagicISO MagicDisc Virtual CD/DVD-ROM is a freeware program that will mount ISO files to regular drive letters. Mounted images appear as CD/DVD drives. Supports up to fifteen virtual drives.
- Virtual CloneDrive is another freeware program that mounts standard ISO files to virtual drives. Supports up to eight virtual drives.
To use either MagicDisc or Virtual CloneDrive, it is necessary to create standard ISO image files from CDs or DVDs. Alex Feinman's ISO Recorder is a free tool for making ISO's from discs. MagicDisc has the ability to create ISO files directly. Once an ISO has been created from a CD-ROM, it can be copied to other computers, making the process of using these virtual CD's much easier than using physical discs.
Updated: 4/3/08
