Virtual CD/DVD Drive - a real one

I've seen apps, usually for Windows, but all the one's I've tried still don't fully emulate a CD/DVD so won't pass copy protection or whatever.

...So, is there any cheap...way in mac os to do this?...

Sure. Burn it to disk. A blank CD or DVD is going to be cheaper than any paid app. So unless you can find a free one, burning to disk will be the cheapest. (This even assumes you can find some app that fully emulates a drive, which I haven't found yet, at least for Mac.) With enough money, you could even pay someone to make a custom app just for you...but you want cheap. 😉

...Having listening to a helicopter-like noise of spinning disc for couple of hours makes me wan't to kill someone with a blunt instrument...

If this is to install, then it would only be a one time thing, so I'd argue that the noise is an acceptable cost. But I assume this is like a game where they use the physical media as a form of identification/authentication or whatever. So I suggest you get an external drive, then with a long enough USB or Firewire cable, you can move the drive away from you, put it on a shelf. Even put a cardboard box over it. Some drives are quieter than others. Often faster drives are noiser, so get a "slow" drive.

In the past with old impact dot matrix printers, you could get foam lined housings that greatly reduced the noise. I have two sitting in my office and with the covers closed, I have to force myself to remember to check for paper jams, they're that quiet. 🙂 So for something like a CD drive, a foam lined enclosure would almost certainly block any noise. (And it's something you can make yourself so cost is minimal. Less than $10 if you can't find any scrap material.)

I was searching for the same thing some time ago. For CD's I found a tool from burningthumb.com:

http://www.burningthumb.com/virtualcdrw.html

For DVD's I haven't found anything yet.

@Asatoran

"Sure. Burn it to disk." - as I wrote earlier, I don't want to burn it. My question was, is there a free/cheap software solution 🙂

I know you said that...but you said you wanted cheap. 🙂

And the solution with external drive, long cable and silencing foam... emmm... no thanks 🙂

I'll still try to find something more elegant.

Again, you wanted cheap. 😝 One could argue that cheap is elegant. 😉

Otherwise, I'm out of ideas at the moment. Luck be with thee!

Can't you just use Disk Utility?

AussieDJ wrote:

Can't you just use Disk Utility?

The issue is that some manufacturers will require the physical disk for program operation. In the past, this was often because you didn't want to copy all the contents of the disk to the hard drive. But as hard drives increased in capacity, storing the CDs as ISO or using a "virtual CD" program to auto-mount the images became popular. But to prevent piracy, some disks are copy protected and the program will check for a physical disk. (Usually games.) So the usual methods of ISO and virtual disks don't work. There have been some apps for Windows computers (e.g.: Game Jackal) but I haven't found any for OSX, at least none that work for those that check for a physical disk, especially for a copy protected disk.

Yeah gotcha. I have a Western Digital free Virtual CD Manager....? Never used it thought, so can't tell you what it's like. But it's on their website.

This one works great with games, as it sees it as a physical disk, rather than just an open disk image for CDs and DVDs So for those games that insist you have the physical disk, this takes care of it. You can try it for free as well.

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite

Still in 2013 there are no solutions to this.

Here's the options to mount ISO as a CD in OSX:

1) Buy TOAST

2) Use Daemon Tools Lite for MAC - ONLY RUNS on 64 bit Kernel - no Macbooks 2009........

3) Bootcamp Windows - then choose the hundreds of free programs (Not really OSX though is it...)

4) This is my favourite total joke - use 'ToastMount' a free app - but wait for it, it ONLY works if you have a full version of Toast installed. Beyond belief.

So in summary, to mount an ISO as a CD in OSX there is one option and there has ONLY and always been one option - pay for a version of toast.

Total Joke.

DAEMON Tools Lite for Mac works both with 32 and 64 bit kernels (on 10.6 and above). At least the latest version does it for sure.

Not on my MacBook Pro that has a second hard drive instead of a SuperDrive. Toast Mount It! is the only thing that works.

I archive various instructional DVD's as .iso files so I don't have to carry them around when I travel. Unless I fool the machine into thinking they are mounted in a drive, DVD Player won't start up, and there IS no drive.

There seems to be no solution other than Toast MountIt which is what I use, but I fear the day when Toast is gone.

I remember when this used to be easy, but Apple scuttled it, intentionally, I suspect. It used to be that you could download music from the iTunes store, save the CD to an image, mount it, and reimport it without copy protection. Then they sabotaged that capacity (for reasons of continuing to negotiate digital rights to music, etc., no doubt), and you could no longer easily mount an image _as though in a drive_ but you could burn a physical CD and then re-import it.

I think that is the reason we are now stuck with the current state of affairs. FWIW.