8 Best Free Virtual Drive Software For Windows 7/8/10/11

Virtual drive software is a piece of niche software used by people who are dealing with ISO files. With the decreasing popularity of physical discs and optical drives, this kind of driver can be a lifesaver. You don’t need to spend money to get a physical machine or item anymore. Everything can be done virtually. This way it’s not only cheaper but also faster. But not just that, good virtual software can also be used to burn, edit, and many more. Most if not all of these pieces of software are simple to use.

8 Best Free Virtual Drive Software For Windows 7/8/10/11

1. ImDisk Toolkit

ImDisk Toolkit Best Free Virtual Drive Software

ImDisk Toolkit is one of the best free Virtual Drive Software.  This is a simple tool with a friendly user interface. Compared to a standard virtual disk driver, it adds a few other tweaks and improvements. There is also an optional mount and create Ramdisks that you can use.

Your image file can be mounted to any available drive letter, this is useful if you’re the type of person who likes to organize everything in order. Simply right-click and select “Mount as ImDisk…” or just launch the Mount Image File shortcut. And that’s it, now you browse or run the image file.

There are options to mount the image file on startup, so you don’t have to manually mount it every time you need it; there are many other configurations that don’t need to be touched unless you really know what you’re doing.

2. PassMark OSFMount

PassMark OSFMount

The next free virtual drive software is OSFMount. OSFMount is a freeware tool designed to be used alongside Passmark OSForensics but can be freely used by anyone to mount virtual drives. It’s a branch of ImDisk and became its own tool. The latest version of OSFMount is 64-bit only, if you’re on 32-bit system you need to download an older version of OSFMount.

Not much can be said other than it can mount as many virtual drives as you have available drive letters. You can mount up to 11 image file formats, this versatility is really handy for most advanced users.

Other features that might be appreciated by advanced features are, mounting ISO file as a virtual RAM drive; creating a new RAM drive; mounting as a removable drive; writing to some image formats that aren’t ISO; and selecting the drive emulation and type.

For beginners, you can ignore those of course. Just press Mount New, select your desired ISO file and click next, next again, and mount, done. It’s lightweight software too, so you can install it on any 64-bit system just in case you need to mount an image drive.

3. Mounting ISO Files in Windows 10

Mounting ISO Files in Windows 10

Do you need a virtual cd drive? Iso mounter Windows 10 That’s right, Windows 10 has a built-in feature to mount an image file. The virtual drive software is very barebone, it doesn’t have any extra features or anything like that. It’s a feature that allows you to mount an image file and that’s it. For people who want to mount an image file, this feature works flawlessly and even better than any 3^rd party software since you don’t have to install anything else and minimize the risk on your system (from shady 3^rd party programs).

All you have to do is to press right-click on an image file you want and click “Mount”. The file will then be automatically mounted and assigned to the first available drive letter. To mount other image files just simply repeat the steps and it will attach to the next available drive letter.

You can’t customize the drive letter but that shouldn’t be a problem at all. Other than ISO files, Windows will also able to mount IMG files. Unmounting an ISO file is just as easy, right-click on the virtual drive and select Eject.

If you’re planning to use Windows 10’s built-in feature, make sure that you uninstall another 3rd part program that does the same thing. This is to avoid problems such as mount options not visible. 3^rd party programs tend to take control over windows like that. Don’t forget to set the file association back to Windows. This can be done easily on the Windows menu.

4. WinArchiver Virtual Drive

WinArchiver Virtual Drive

WinArchiver Virtual Drive is created by Power Software. They also created gBurner Virtual Drive. Both of those are free and very similar virtual drive software. WinArchiver Virtual Drive has more features compared to the other one. For more info on Power Software, they also created WinArchiver, PowerISO, gBurner, and Anyburn.

They are very experienced in creating software for the virtual drive, so you know that their software is going to be reliable. WinArchiver Virtual Drive can create up to 23 virtual drives from around 25 different image formats. That’s way more support than most software out there.

Each drive can be assigned to a specific letter. You can also mount any type of file archive as a virtual drive, Zip, 7z, RAR, WIM, CAB, and many more. You can mount them without extracting the contents of the archive first. WinArchiver Virtual Drive was released in 2012 but don’t worry, it works flawlessly in the newer machines running Windows 10.

This virtual drive software is intended for advanced users, the additional features and supports will help a small portion of users by a lot. For beginner users, you can ignore those features and simply using it to mount your image files.

And for users who want newer software from Power Software, you can try gBurner Virtual Drive instead. While not quite as powerful as WinArchiver Virtual Drive, it was released in 2018. So it’ll run better and have better compatibility in the future.

5. ImgDrive

ImgDrive

ImgDrive is created by Yubsoft. It’s very underrated and doesn’t get much mention around the internet. it’s lightweight and useful. The interface is very simple and practical. The best thing is that the interface will help you keep track of all your virtual drives in one panel.

If you have multiple virtual drives, this is a very handy feature to have. it also has a portable version; you can keep it on your flash drive and carry it everywhere you go. Keep in mind that, even the portable version needs to install a driver beforehand. But it can be removed once you’re done using it.

It can mount up to seven virtual drives at once and support six different types of image files. You mount an image click with a double click, from the context menu, from the tray icon menu, or from the GUI. You can mount a folder as a virtual drive with ImgDrive, there is also a couple of options to create ISO from a folder or from a physical disc. Very handy if you’re using a disc a lot to keep your files.

6. Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel

Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel

Microsoft Virtual CDRom Control Panel is a free iso mount.  This software was released all the way back in 2001 and was re-released in 2013. It runs on Windows XP, Vista, and 7. This software is more like a niche tool for people who run an old system. Don’t expect it to work without problem on 32-bit system or Windows 10.

This software is really small, only 60kb in total. It’s also portable and can be used anywhere but the driver still needs to be installed first. The software can be a life-saver if you want to backup files from an old computer. Remember to read the readme.txt file first for the instruction to use this virtual drive software.

7. Virtual CloneDrive

Virtual CloneDrive

Virtual CloneDrive functions and behaves the same as a physical CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive, but it is only virtually.

Picture files generated with CloneBD/CloneDVD/CloneCD or alternative programs like ImgBurn may be mounted on a virtual drive in the hard-disk or via a system drive and utilized in exactly the exact same manner as integrating them in a typical CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive.

Most likely the very best virtual drive applications, Virtual CloneDrive lets you enjoy the freedom of a virtual drive and is totally free.

Above are recommendations of 7  Best Free Virtual Drive Software For Windows 7/8/10. Please take what you like and according to your needs.

8. WinCDEmu Free Iso Mounter

WinCDEmu is an open-source software that allows users to mount optical disc images and access their contents without requiring a physical disc or optical drive. As an optical drive emulator, WinCDEmu provides a convenient way to use disc images just like real CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays.

With its intuitive user interface, WinCDEmu enables effortless one-click mounting of common disc image formats such as ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, and IMG files. After mounting, these images become accessible as virtual optical drives under Windows Explorer, ready for users to browse files and launch applications or media just as if using physical media.

Key Features:

• Support for quick one-click mounting of optical disc images including ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, and IMG files
• Ability to mount an unlimited number of virtual drives
• Compatible across 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms from XP to Windows 10
• Explorer context menu integration to easily create ISO images
• Lightweight installer under 2MB in size
• No reboot requirement after installation
• Portable version available
• Translated to over 20 languages
• Virtual drives only occupy drive letters when in use
• Handles data discs, DVD videos, and Blu-ray videos
• Licensed under LGPL for free use without restrictions

With its small resource footprint, multi-platform and multi-language support, intuitive interface and usefulness for managing disc images, WinCDEmu aims to be the top choice for an optical drive emulator across various versions of Windows. Its open-source nature and liberal licensing also makes it a compelling free option for handling virtual optical drives.

FAQS: Best Free Virtual Drive Software For Windows 10