There are many CD reader emulators available, for saving the contents
of a CD-R to an ISO file and to mount an ISO file as a read-only
virtual CD drive. Daemon Tools is perhaps the most popular.

I need the reverse - a CD Burner emulator, i.e. a device driver that
presents itself to the O/S as a  CD-RW drive, but instead of writing
to a CD-R disc, it writes the data to an ISO file.

The Deamon Tools authors specifically state in their FAQ that they
have no plans to support CD-write emulation, and I have not been able
to locate any other software that can do this.

An acceptable answer would be a link to a downloadable driver for
Windows XP that fully emulates a CDRW drive and that allows saving data to an
ISO image (instead of a physical CD-R dic) from any application with a
CD-R burning interface.

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 23 Nov 2004 05:13 PST

Hi,

Would something like WinISO be suitable?

WinISO
http://www.downloadatoz.com/winiso/how-to-create-iso-images.html

Thanks.
endo

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 24 Nov 2004 09:56 PST

Hi,

Can you provide more information about the application? There might be
another way to achieve what you're tring to do.

Thanks.
endo

---

Clarification of Question by deepspace-ga on 24 Nov 2004 10:24 PST

The application is legacy custom software with an I/O module that
requires a local CDRW drive on each machine for backup and data
transfer. I need to remove that requirement by redirecting the data to
a network location. At this point, using a different application or
upgrading the existing one is not an option.

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 24 Nov 2004 11:28 PST

Hi,

Have you tried this application:

Original CD Emulator
http://www.ztekware.com/product.htm

It seems to support virtual CDRW.

Thanks.
endo

---

Clarification of Question by deepspace-ga on 24 Nov 2004 13:38 PST

It looks like OCDE may provide exactly the functionality I need. I
will do a test installation and see if it works with my application.

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 24 Nov 2004 14:35 PST

That's good news. Please let me know how it goes.

Thanks.
endo

---

Clarification of Question by deepspace-ga on 24 Nov 2004 20:43 PST

Alas, no luck yet. I downloaded an evaluation copy of Original CD
Emulator, but it refuses to run, claiming that the evaluation period
has expired, even though I have never tried this package before.

I sent a request for assistance to their support address.  I'll let
you know if this is vaporware or a real solution as soon as I hear
from them.

Thanks,
DS

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 25 Nov 2004 05:16 PST

Hi,

That's unfortunate, I've seen some good reviews for it, so can you
please try other versions of the trial software. They seem to have a
network edition and a terminal edition, one of those may work until
you get some information back from them.

Thanks.
endo

---

Clarification of Question by deepspace-ga on 26 Nov 2004 19:55 PST

Hi,

None of the evaluation versions of OCDE would run, so I took a leap of
faith and purchased a license key.

Since then I have spent many, many hours trying to get the software to
work.  The CDRW option is there, and after mounting a CDRW ISO file, 
the O/S recognizes the virtual drive. The aplication even recognizes
the drive and attempts to write to it.

Then everything stops working. The system simply hangs indefinitely,
with CPU usage at 100%. I tried another system -- same problem.  Could
not even get it to work with MediaPlayer, which Ztekware claims to be
a supported application.

So far, my efforts to contact Ztekware have been fruitless, so I am
just about ready to give up on OCDE.  It's a pity -- for a while there
a solution seemed so close..

--DS

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 27 Nov 2004 04:11 PST

Hi,

Sorry it didn't work out of the box, hopefully since you're now a
registered user, you might get some support.

I'll try it out myself and see if I can get it to work.

Thanks.
endo

---

Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 27 Nov 2004 05:46 PST

Hi,

I tried the software, didn't have that trial problem you had (maybe
your system date is wrong?), managed to burn to the virtual drive with
Nero and got an image from it. Trying to read the image back seems to
be another matter, but it didn't hang on me. So it might be something
common on the systems you tried. I'm running Windows 2000, are you
running XP?

Hope support will get back to you.

Thanks.
endo

---

Clarification of Question by deepspace-ga on 28 Nov 2004 23:15 PST

Hi, 

Yes I am running XP. Today, I installed Nero, to see if that would
work, but it does not even recognize the OCDE virtual drive on my
system...

--DS

---

Clarification of Question by deepspace-ga on 13 Dec 2004 00:51 PST

An update on this problem: I tried OCDE on a Windows 200 system, and
it worked with Nero. Still no luck with Windows XP though, and
Ztekware's customer support is nonexistent.

Endo: Even though your answer did not solve my problem, you did point
me to what appears to be the only remotely viable solution, and you
had no way of knowing that Ztekware is a fly-by-night company, so I'll
accept your response as the answer to my question.

Hi deepspace,

I'm sorry Ztekware wasn't able to help you.

I've had another look and there doesn't seem to be any other software
that offers the same functionality. I've also searched for some
support area, but haven't found that either.

I hope you can get it to work and get some help from Ztekware.

Thanks.
endo

Search strategy

cdrw emulator
://www.google.com/search?q=cdrw+emulator

---

Clarification of Answer by endo-ga on 14 Dec 2004 13:32 PST

I just wanted to add, thanks for getting back. Coincidentally, the day
you posted that last clarification, and before I noticed it, I thought
about your question and whether or not you had gotten any help from
Ztekware.

Thanks again for letting me answer this.
endo

Thank you for all the suggestions and great follow-up.

You didn't specify: what operating systems are applicable? I have
routine capable of this task under linux or unix, but would need to
port it for you to use under windows or mac.

No, WinISO does not provide device-driver level emulation of a CDRW drive.

Nero supports this, I don't have Nero on this computer, so I can't
tell you how to do it right now.  You can DL the evaluation software
and play around for a few minutes, and I'm sure you can figure it out.
 I burn several data cd's everyday, and when I'm done writing the cd,
it asks if I want to save the ISO file.  Try starting nero burning
rom, add the files like you are going to burn a cd, but close the
window instead of burning,  it should say something like "Do you want
to save changes to ISO1?" click yes, and see what happens.....I'll try
later this afternoon and see if I can get it to work.

Nero burn handles all that and more... not only can you burn to an
image, mount an image, or duplicate it. And it is soo easy. When doing
it with nero, on top it has a pull down on which drive you want to use
(burn) with your actual drive on default. Just pull down the menu,
select the image drive, and click burn. It will then ask where and
what name do you want to burn it to. I use it often with games a
software. I store all of my programs in ISO form, even my DVD's, on my
HDD. Then I use nero image drive to run them. Nero feels awkward at
first, but once you play with it a few times, it soon makes sense and
it comes with a bunch of other tools that are cool too. Like backups
and cleaning utilities. Download the trial and give a whirl for a week
or two.

Most standalone CD burning packages, including Nero, of course provide
a way to create an ISO file, but that is not what I am looking for.

My application generates data 'on the fly', and has no mechanism for
storing that data, other than writing it directly to a data CD.

I simply do not have the data available outside the application to use
as input to Nero, WinISO and similar packages, and therefore need a
true drive emulator, implemented as a device driver.

Responding to ignesandros's comment: 
My question clearly states that I need a device driver for Windows XP.