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Virtual Cd Drives In Mac

J

jasonp

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 16, 2005
3
0
:confused:

Hi all Ineed to create a virtual drive but dont want to buy lots of expensive software as Idont do this very often.
basically I have an ISO I need to set as a drive (alcohol 120% would do this in PC world)

HELP PLEASE
jason
 
thanks very much

are there any other direct ways of doing this that anyone knows


jason
 
when i have an ISO i use Roxio Toast. however if you need one that you don't want to pay for then i'd suggest something off SoftPedia - they have a good mac section. look for a disk image mounter

doesn't alcohol 120% work on mac?
 
doesn't alcohol 120% work on mac?
Click to expand...
It's system requirements are for Intel/AMD based PCs running Windows. So no A120% here.

jasonp said:
are there any other direct ways of doing this that anyone knows
Click to expand...

I have definitely mounted ISOs using Disk Utility, though I'm not at my Mac to check. Have you given it a try?

You could probably also do it from Terminal using mount.

B
 
Funny I saw this post today.

I'm pretty sure that if an ISO is properly written, you can double click it in Finder. I've done this with ISOs before...I've downloaded them and used them as virtual disks for VPC or QEMU.

However, I'm not sure what constitutes "properly...."

I tried to make one of a mini-CD that I have sitting around, on a PC using WinImage today. It contains a medical dictionary that came with a book that I bought a year ago, and I never bothered to figure out how to get it onto my iBook (whose slot-loading drive will not countenance mini-CDs). The ISO image repeatedly failed to mount, both from DU and from Finder, stating that it was not recognizable. I don't know whether there's something wrong with it, or there's a limitation in OS X, because the only other thing I can test it with is WinImage, which can obviously read it (but the PC can't see the Mac stuff on the disk).
 
mkrishnan said:
(but the PC can't see the Mac stuff on the disk).
Click to expand...
Sounds like it could be a multisession disc then, which could contribute to your woes. What you really want is just the Mac session it sounds like.

You could try using a different tool to create the image such as the aforementioned Alcohol120 % (free trial) or maybe even dd.exe.

B
 
balamw said:
You could try using a different tool to create the image such as the aforementioned Alcohol120 % (free trial) or maybe even dd.exe.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I don't mean to threadjack, so brief story: Alcohol 120% ripped the CD in such a way that my Mac could read the Mac partition -- although the ISO was clearly big enough that it contained the PC partition, neither Disk Utility not Finder identified it. Strange. :( Anyway, when I got this far, I realized the Mac partition has files for Office 98 under Classic and not OS X. :rolleyes:

Anyways, back to the original author, Disk Utility will make the image files for you, and Finder or Disk Utility will open ISO images, although apparently some situations like the one I described can be problematic.... :(
 
mkrishnan said:
neither Disk Utility not Finder identified it. Strange. :(
Click to expand...
http://www.cinram.com/cd/tech/cdhybrid.pdf goes into a pretty technical description of how these Hybrid ISO/HFS discs can be created and their format.

This could be useful to you and the OP in figuring out why a particular ISO image might not mount: http://disktype.sourceforge.net/

From their docs.

3.11.4. Hybrid PC/Macintosh CDs

Apple has its own set of ISO9660 extensions to store Mac OS metadata for files, but they are seldom used. Instead, a full HFS or HFS Plus file system is put on the CD together with an ISO9660 file system. This works well, since both file systems are flexible in placing their data structures, and the (fixed-position) superblocks don't overlap. Some mastering programs use an Apple-style partition table with one entry, for no reason in particular. File data can be shared between both file systems simply by pointing at the same blocks in the appropriate structures.

Hybrid CDs contain two valid file systems, and disktype will report them as such.
Click to expand...

B
 
jasonp said:
:confused:

Hi all Ineed to create a virtual drive but dont want to buy lots of expensive software as Idont do this very often.
basically I have an ISO I need to set as a drive (alcohol 120% would do this in PC world)

HELP PLEASE
jason
Click to expand...
creating: disk utility, Toast
mounting: disk utility, Finder (same thing), Toast

If it doesn't need to be formatted something for non-Mac OS X computers, Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility) will work fine. Disk Utility, if i remember correctly, will mount most disk images, except for like program specific ones (like nero and alcohol120%) - essentially most isos and dmgs and whatnot

Otherwise you WILL need toast.
 
Toast is great for it, just double click an image and it mounts it, a lot easier and better integrated than alcohol 120% on the pc too :)
 
robbieduncan said:
Disk Utility can mount DMGs as "virtual dives". Not sure about ISO images.
Click to expand...

I've never had a problem with disk image and ISO. Right click on the ISO, select Open With -> Disk Utility. When Disk Utility opens, you can see the ISO in the left pane where the mounted drives are. You can either mount the ISO as a virtual file system or burn a CD.
 
Sorry if I try to ask a new question on your post. But how how to i burn or unmount .bin fileS?
 
Let me try to make my question clearer.

I have a .bin file, and I want to get the data inside, how can I get that? What program do I use? Disk Utility doesn't support .bin files.
 
That depends on what is in the BIN file (as determined by the CUE file).

For many BIN files you can simply rename to .ISO (if it's an ISO) or use vcdgear to extract the MPEG file if it's a VCD image, ...

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/ Burn will let you burn the BIN/CUE file pair to a disc.

B
 
Hi all... Great suggestions and I intend to try these. One question though: when mounting the virtual CD, will it *look* like a CD drive? The reason I ask is this: I would like to start playing Railroad Tycoon on my macbook air, and do not want to have to carry around an external CDROM for the CD required for gameplay. I'd like to "trick" my Mac into thinking I have a physical optical drive. Would this do it?
 
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