Total Mounter comes with support for many disk image formats including iso, bin, b5i, mdf, cdi, nrg, ccd, sub, img and raw. Even better is the fact that the program does not have to be running after mounting a disk image which will obviously reduce its memory footprint and resource usage. Up to eight drives can be emulated by the software program. Images can be mounted in the application’s interface. One interesting aspect of Total Mounter is the ability to create virtual CD-RW and DVD-RW drives that can be used to write date to a virtual CD or DVD drive.

Another interesting feature provided by the software is the virtual disk creation option. This makes it possible to create and mount virtual disks from within the application. TotalMounter will install a new driver to the computer system during installation to offer the functionality.It also offers the following niche features that might be interesting to some users:

• Provides a iSCSI Initiator for mount iStorage Server and other iSCSI Target.
• Provides a INetDisk client for mount INetDisk Server.
• Provides a network-bridged method. It exports an existing partition, disk, CD/DVD-ROM to clients as a virtual iSCSI drive.

The program is easy to use and does support most image formats that are popular these days.

Related posts

• Mount Up To 20 ISO Images (20)
• Gizmo Drive Mounting With New Features (5)
• Virtual DVD Drive CloneDrive (10)
• Lock Optical Drives (4)
• ZoneScreen Finally Gets 64-bit Update (7)

The Windows operating system – at least Windows XP – is not offering name editing for DVD drives. At least not the easy way. You might know that it is possible to change the drive letter of a hard drive in Windows by right-clicking its icon and selecting Properties. The very same option is grayed out for DVD drives and probably other drive types as well.

Some solutions are floating around on the Internet that involve Registry editing which is something that most inexperienced users do not want to do. A far better solution is a small program called Drive Namer which has been requested and completed at the Donation Coder forum a long time ago.

Drive Namer is a small portable application for the Windows operating system that can change the name of any drive letter easily. It has been primarily designed to work with DVD drives and other drive types with locked name editing. The program requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 to run but does not have any other requirements.

It will display the small form upon startup that provides a pull down menu for all drive letters of the computer system including those not in use. Changing the drive letter of a DVD drive would simply involve selecting the correct drive letter of the DVD drive from the menu and entering a name in the form next to it. A click on the SET button will enable the name on the system which can be checked in Windows Explorer.

Windows Explorer Before

Windows Explorer After

The names can be reset by selecting a drive letter and pressing the Reset button in the software program. The software does not have to be running after the names of the DVD drives have been edited.

The original location of Drive Namer is no longer providing the file download for the application. You can download it below right from the Ghacks server. The download has a size of 10 Kilobytes. There is also a download link at the Donation Coder website pointing to a file host. Could go down in the future which is why we provide the download mirror as well.

drive namer

Related posts

• Ask The Readers: Lock A DVD Drive In Windows Explorer (6)
• Windows Tabbed Browsing (4)
• Windows Explorer Tweaker (2)
• Windows Explorer Alternative Ultra Explorer (8)
• Windows Explorer Alternative Snowbird (32)

The question now is if there is a way to lock the DVD drive in Windows Explorer. Locking meaning that it will not be accessed in any way when a user opens Windows Explorer, a file browser or any other means of accessing files on his computer system. Ideally the program should be able to determine direct DVD access and allow that from happening.

The only viable solution so far is to create a disk image of the DVD in the drive and mount it using a software that emulates CD drives. This is however not a perfect solution. It would be much easier to have a on and off button for the DVD drive or a program running that would automatically perform the operation. Actually there is one additional solution which would involve removing the DVD from the drive whenever it is not needed and putting it back in whenever it is needed.

Question is: Do you know of a program that can lock the DVD drive so that the DVD will not be accessed when accessing Windows Explorer?

Related posts

• Add Names To DVD Drives (13)
• Why DRM is not consumer friendly (3)
• Virtual CD Drive Software (14)
• Riaa is sueing Allofmp3 (0)
• Print Covers using Undercover XP (4)

Optical drives are sensible and can break easily if enough pressure is applied. CD / DVD Drive Locker puts an end to this fear by locking selected optical drives of a computer system. The software program is easy to use. Just select the optical drives that should be locked and move them to the list of locked drives with the click of a button. Unlocking works practically the same.

While kids – or more specifically parents – are the main target for the application it might also make sense under other circumstances. Could be useful to lock the optical laptop drive to avoid that the drive opens accidentally.

Credit goes to Instant Fundas for finding the application. They missed to include a link to the application though. CD / DVD Drive Locker is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 2000.

Related posts

• Virtual CD Drive Software (14)
• TotalMounter Virtual DVD Drive Software (8)
• Kid Key Lock (4)
• Ask The Readers: Lock A DVD Drive In Windows Explorer (6)
• ZoneScreen Finally Gets 64-bit Update (7)

Virtual CloneDrive is a software that emulates up to eight virtual CD and DVD drives on the system. Each appears in Windows Explorer with its own drive letter and the user can perform the usual operations such as installing software from or exploring the CD or DVD that has been mounted.

The software works by adding two new entries to the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer that only appear when right-clicking a virtual CD drive. That makes mounting and unmounting new images overly complicated. I liked how Daemon Tools provided a system tray icon that could be used to mount and unmount images easily.

Several popular image formats are supported including iso, dvd and img but it does not support all the image formats that were supported by Daemon Tools Lite.

The software has a low computer memory consumption while it is running. It used up only 3 Megabytes of computer memory while emulating one virtual drive. Raising that number did not have a huge impact on the memory consumption.

The application had to be started again to add or remove virtual CD drives from the system. Mounting and working with those CD and DVD images on the other hand was uncomplicated. The application lacks an interface that is accessible while using it. It would also be nice to be able to mount images by right-clicking them or loading them from the program’s interface. Currently the only other option available is to assign the file extensions to Virtual CloneDrive so that a double-click would mount them.

Related posts

• Nero Disc Speed (1)
• Mount Up To 20 ISO Images (20)
• Mount Iso Images (17)
• Lock Optical Drives (4)
• Ask The Readers: Lock A DVD Drive In Windows Explorer (6)

Benchmarking a CD or DVD drive makes only sense if you can compare the results. This can be useful if you can test several CD or DVD writers before making a decision which to build into the computer or if you want to know how your drive compares to similar drives. If the benchmarking process does not throw up an error or stops midway you can almost be sure that the drive is not damaged mechanically.

The disc quality test is more interesting. It tests the quality of a created disc displaying a quality score at the end. A score above 80 is acceptable and everything above 90 is very good. I usually analyse the disc using the Scandisc function if the quality score lies beneath 80. This is also a great way to test burned media from time to time to make sure it does not contain any bad or unreadable sectors.

Nero Disc Speed comes in handy if you suspect that your DVD or CD drive is not working correctly or if you want to check the quality of the burned discs.

Related posts

• Zip Repair (3)
• Zen Key An All Purpose Application Manager (3)
• Youtube Batch Downloader (13)
• Yahoo Widget Position Restorer (1)
• Workrave (6)