Why I Ditched Daemon Tools/Alcohol 120%

By LiquidSolstice
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Grand Master

LiquidSolstice

Posted
Posted

UPDATE: They now have a signed version, so 64-bit users are good to go!

Well guys, I'm not sure how many of you have to mount an image routinely (I do because I create bootable USB drives all the time), but I got sick on tired of Daemon Tools, PowerIso, and Alcohol 120/52. After a tiiny bit of googling, I found this gem:

WinCDEmu - Main Site

Source Forge Site

It's fantastic. It's open source, a little less than half a megabyte, and is ridiculously easy to use. It supports ISO, CUE, IMG, BIN, NRG, MDF/MDS, CCD and RAW formats, and all you have to do to mount an image is to right click on any of the mentioned image files and then click "Select Drive Letter and Mount" and that's it! To unmount, you just go into My Computer, right click the virtual drive, and click eject, and that's it, it disappears.

This has been such a boon for me, I hated having to install such bloated software which did tons and tons more than I needed from a mounting program. Undoubtedly, there might be many of you who need those advanced features, but for those of you who simply need mounting and unmounted, this is your app, it will get the job done.

Right now, I'm using it mount DVD backup images to watch whenever I want. Saves a lot of time that I don't have to rip them :)

Anyways, just thought you guys might be interested.

Explorer

T1Cybernetic

Posted
Posted

Nice one, it does sound interesting and to be honest anything that is open source can easily be improved if there are any problems (which i am sure there aren't) i'll give it a blast as soon as i get a chance...

Grand Master

LiquidSolstice

Posted
  • Author
Posted

According to their site, this is an UNSIGNED application, meaning it doesn't support x64 Vista/Win7.

Daemon Tools and Virtual CloneDrive are signed, and do support x64 Vista/Win7.

If you read carefully, you'll notice that they are rought a little more than 60% of the way to getting a signed application. Unlike Daemon Tools and Virtual CloneDrive, Sysprogs is an open source freeware community, and they must rely on user donations rather than revenue from past sales.

Just gave it a try on Windows 7.. installed fine, first time trying to mount an iso and it failed :(

What version of Windows 7 are you running? 32 or 64? Also, I find that you need to make sure it asks you if it's ok to install an unsigned driver. Once or twice when I installed it, it did not show me that dialog and by extension did not work.Perhaps try uninstalling and reinstalling?

Proficient

profets

Posted
Posted

What version of Windows 7 are you running? 32 or 64? Also, I find that you need to make sure it asks you if it's ok to install an unsigned driver. Once or twice when I installed it, it did not show me that dialog and by extension did not work.Perhaps try uninstalling and reinstalling?

using 32bit. it installed ok, asked about it being unsigned, but i allowed the driver to install.

just uninstalled, will try again.

Rising Star

intrinity1

Posted
Posted

i use magicdisc from magiciso

http://www.magiciso....sc-overview.htm

Same here! I love magicdisc and have been using it for a while now. I got tired of having to reboot every time I installed Daemon Tools and with magicdisc you don't have to.

Grand Master

Singh400

Posted
Posted

Kinda sad, I was trying to point out a fresh open source tool and it's getting dominated by nominations for other tools :/. Ah well.

Yes yes, we know you love WinCDEmu. But there is no harming pointing out alternatives to the alternative. People have different tastes ;)

Grand Master

LiquidSolstice

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Is there any way of testing a bootable USB drive without having to restart the computer every time?

Some app that could just mount and boot from USB drive virtually?

I doubt it. Your best bet is just to grab a copy of VirtualBox (freeware) and virtualize it yourself.

Grand Master

Denis W. Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

Yeah, they don't have a signed 64-bit version. :/

Since the whole bit of SPTD dragging their feet with Win7 beta support, I've been sticking with Virtual CloneDrive.

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