Free CD / DVD Emulation Software, Virtual DVD / CD Drives

Free CD / DVD Emulation Software, Virtual DVD / CD Drives
The free CD or DVD emulators allow you to create/emulate virtual CD or DVD drives in your computer. To the operating system, this appears as though you have another one (or more) new DVD or CD drives. Instead of placing a physical CDROM or DVD into this virtual drive, you "mount" an ISO image of the real CD or DVD using the drive. The emulation software pretends to the operating system (eg, Windows) that you have placed a real CD or DVD into the drive and allows software running on the system to play the CD or DVD, or run programs from it.
Note: ISO images are merely a copy of the CD or DVD kept as a file on the computer. They are useful when you want to burn an entire ISO (copy of a CD/DVD) to a CD or DVD or use a CD or DVD emulation software to mount the image as if it were a physical CD. ISO images can be created by many of the programs listed on the Free CD and DVD Burners and Copying Software page.
Virtual CD/DVD drives are useful since many software (including a number from Microsoft as well as almost every Linux distribution) come as ISO images. It is also useful when you have to frequently access a particular set of CDs or DVDs and don't want to repeatedly swap them in your physical drive, or if you want to speed up reading from a CD or DVD (all virtual CD/DVD drives are vastly faster than the physical drive, since they reside on your hard disk instead of the slower CD/DVD drive).
Some of the DVD / CD emulators listed here are able to mimic many features of a real drive, allowing you to play protected game CDs, something that may be good news for parents of young children, who tend not to have sophisticated CD/DVD handling skills and destroy CDs by the dozen. Others virtual drive software, such as the offering from Microsoft, merely imitate the basic features of a CD drive, allowing you to mount only normal CDs.
Commercial offerings not listed below include GameDrive which can create up to 23 virtual CD drives that you can use to play games without swapping CDs (it can copy your CDs to an image which it can play) and VirtualDrive which not only supports the playing of games and other CDs, but also the creation of custom virtual CDs including music CDs, etc. Note that if all you want is to backup your protected game CDs and not necessarily to mount it, you can also check out Blindwrite (download trial here), a well-known program that can handle a wide variety of game CDs, CDs, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL,
Free DVD and CD Emulators, Virtual CD / DVD Drive Software
DAEMON Tools
DAEMON Tools is a free CD-ROM / DVD-ROM emulator that allows you to mount your ISO images in a virtual CDROM / DVD drive. It is able to emulate a wide range of copy protections and is thus able to play ISOs of such CD-ROMs / DVDs, besides the usual non-copy protected CDs and DVDs. Note that you will still need a program like Blindwrite to create the ISO images first. This is a Windows program. Note that this is an ad-supported software (adware).
Microsoft Virtual CD Control Panel (warning: direct download link)
Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel is a free CD-ROM emulator that allows you to mount ISO images of CDROMs in a virtual drive. It is a rudimentary program that does not support copy-protected discs such as the game disks supported by commercial CD/DVD emulators. Note that the Virtual CD Control Panel link is a direct download link. It came from a Microsoft KnowledgeBase entry on an unrelated subject, which contains some instructions on how you can install the driver, add a virtual CD drive and mount your images. (If you are visiting that link for instructions about the Virtual CDROM Control Panel, simply ignore references to "Windows PE".) You will also need to use a third party program to make your ISO images (if you don't already have it). This is a Windows program.
Circle Virtual CD
Circle Virtual CD is a free CD-ROM emulator that creates a virtual CD-ROM drive. It allows you access frequently used CD-ROMs without having to repeatedly switch disks from your physical CD-ROM drive. It has the built-in ability to make an image of a physical drive. This is a Windows program.
Alcohol 52% Free Edition
You can create up to 6 virtual CD / DVD drives with this free version of Alcohol 52%. The reading speed of your virtual drive is 200X. The software supports CD-DA, CD+G, CD-ROM, CD-XA, Video CD, Photo CD, mixed mode, multi-session CDs and DVDs, DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. Note that the installer will ask if you wish to install an optional Alcohol toolbar.
MagicDisc - Virtual CD/DVD-ROM
MagicDisc supports the mounting of a wide variety of images, including ISO, BIN, IMA/IMG, CIF, NRG, IMG/CCD, MDF/MDS, VCD, C2D, VDI, BWI/BWT, TAO/DAO, PDI, P01/MD1/XA, VaporCD, and compressed Universal Image Files (UIF). It can create up to 15 drives, and emulate audio CDs, VCDs, SVCDs, etc