Any free 'Virtual CD/DVD Burner' out there?

[Ravi]

Folks,
Is there a free Virtual CD/DVD burner out there?

I am not talking about turning a bunch of files/directories into an ISO image. Or ripping a DVD/ISO apart.

A lot of applications, like iTunes, give you an ability to directly burn a bunch of files onto a DVD - in which case, you'll really need to insert a blank media and burn it. What I am looking for is something loosely analogous to CutePDF writer where in you 'print' a page not to a printer, but to a pdf file.

I need one such software not (just) to overcome iTunes DRM (I don't use iTunes. Or any Apple products, for that matter), but - first, I hate CDs lying around. They are also slow (200x) than an image. Second, Hard driver are getting way cheaper. Lastly, many notebooks these days simply do not have an optical drive.
I'm experimenting with a couple of them I found on net (trial version), so will let interested folks know about it. But if you have any, pls let me know. TIA.

[Charchila]

Not sure if Daemon Tools qualify. If you haven't already looked at it, see if that's what you're looking for.

[jana05]

Is this what you are looking for ?

MagicDisc

Edit/Add: Sorry, tried this just now. I don't think this is what you are looking for. This just mounts a iso image as a virtual drive.
This will mount any iso image file.

Another Edit:
But here is what I would do for a situation like this, (correct me if I have misunderstood your query)

Step 1> Create an ISO image with the required files
Step 2> Mount the ISO image using virtual disc software like magicdisc, etc...

[Ravi]

Re: Charchila. Deamon Tools does indeed qualify. They just tested it on Windows 7 (which I use) and seems to work after they tweaked their Vista version a bit. But as again, maximum size for free product is 300 MB (not a big deal).

Re: Jana05. I probably didn't formulate my question clearly. Typically we use burning/ripping software to create, extract or mount ISO images. However, there is a bunch of bad guys out there, such as iTunes, who want to burn directly to disks without giving you any options - which means, you'll need to burn a CD. On the other hand, if you have a virtual CD writer, you could fool those programs into believing that they are writing to a disk, where as in reality you are only creating an image on the disk. Hope that clarifies.

[jana05]

ah i understand now....thanks for clarifying

try "alcohol 52%"

[Ravi]

Originally Posted by jana05

ah i understand now....thanks for clarifying
try "alcohol 52%"

It's actually Alcohol 120% that burns the DVDs. 52 only mounts. I'll soon try both Deamon and Alcohol and see how they perform.

[Sane Less]

Originally Posted by Ravi

It's actually Alcohol 120% that burns the DVDs. 52 only mounts. I'll soon try both Deamon and Alcohol and see how they perform.

Or is it possible that after all that alcohol, you just think that you have mounted... and the heat and burning is just illusionary

[jana05]

Originally Posted by Ravi

It's actually Alcohol 120% that burns the DVDs. 52 only mounts. I'll soon try both Deamon and Alcohol and see how they perform.

Ravi bhai, Any success?

[motowner]

Originally Posted by jana05

Ravi bhai, Any success?

After Alcohol 120% and mounting 52 Deamons, he is taking a break from EC.

[jana05]

Originally Posted by motowner

After Alcohol 120% and mounting 52 Deamons, he is taking a break from EC.

[Ravi]

Originally Posted by jana05

Ravi bhai, Any success?

Nope. Alcohol's virtual drive is just read only and has no burning capability. Same thing with Daemon Tools.
OTOH, I heard some tools (k3b) on Linux that might help. Need to experiment with them, though.

Also, for apps such as iTunes, you'll probably still need a physical drive and not a virtual.

[jana05]

Originally Posted by Ravi

Nope. Alcohol's virtual drive is just read only and has no burning capability. Same thing with Daemon Tools.
OTOH, I heard some tools (k3b) on Linux that might help. Need to experiment with them, though.

Also, for apps such as iTunes, you'll probably still need a physical drive and not a virtual.

Could you give me the names the culprits, I would like to try although I too think it may not be successful.

My guess is, the API for virtual drives and the real drives are probably different. I am not a windows internal guy!!!

[Ravi]

Originally Posted by jana05

My guess is, the API for virtual drives and the real drives are probably different. I am not a windows internal guy!!!

I don't think the APIs are different. That's the whole point behind shell integration.
I haven't done much work in Unix lately, but will try k3b in Linux. Let's see how it works.
If you're good at Linux programming, may be you can give it a try.