Virtual USB flash drives and writable CD images?

I test a lot of software on virtual machines, especially boot disks as booting my real computer is inconvenient. To that end I'm looking for a program that could create virtual USB flash disks and writable cd images (a writable iso of an empty cd/dvd?).

For example, I don't have a floppy drive on my laptop, so I use a program called Virtual Floppy Drive. If a program can create a bootable floppy (think of Image for Windows or Drive Snapshot), I just let it write to the virtual floppy drive. I then save the virtual floppy as an img-file, and I can boot from it (as well as from iso files) using grub boot loader. (Booting from virtual floppies is also much faster than from real floppies). I'm looking for software that could do the same for CD/DVD images and USB flash disks.

 

Update: I just found out that Virtual CD 10.1 can create blank, writable virtual CD's (and DVD's too I assume). It's not free though so if anyone knows a free or otherwise better alternative to it, please let me know.

Also, I'm still looking for a virtual USB flash drive emulator. I came across one several years ago when I was looking into different ram disk programs. In particular, it could mount a ram disk as a removable USB flash drive. However, I cannot remember the program's name anymore.

 

For virtual recorder I use Phantom Drive. (same company with Virtual CD 10.1)
It emulates CD, DVD, DVD-RAM, HD-DVD and Blue-Ray writable and rewritable discs.

Panagiotis

 

Wouldn't Daemon Tools Lite and/or SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive do the same. Both are Freeware!

http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/products/dtLite

 

Here is the link for DVDFab Virtual Drive. Another Freeware:

http://www.dvdfab.com/virtual-drive.htm

Daemon Tools Lite is Adware, and during installation one can chose not to install the Adware components.

 

Here is another Freeware from MagicISO called the MagicDisc:

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm pretty sure MagicDisc, Virtual Clone Drive, DVDFab Virtual Drive and Daemon Tools can only mount existing disk images and create images from physical CD's, whereas I'm looking for a software with the additional capability to fill the virtual drive with a virtual version of a blank, writable cd/dvd image.

Phantom Drive, Phantom Burner and Virtual CD all have this capability, but none of them are free. The former two are lighter than Virtual CD (~10 MB installers compared to ~100 MB) but of course also offer fewer options.

I also re-discovered a program called Virtual Flash Drive (v3.30), which is meant as a security tool (it uses encrypted flash drive images), but it almost fits the bill on the USB side for my purposes when used without a password. However, VMware and maybe some other programs don't detect the virtual flash drives as actual (usable) flash drives, and once again it's payware.

 

Very true!

You are right that Virtual CD has a burner. I went ahead and purchased it. It actually gave me a discount and I purchased it for less than $30. It cost me $29.37 to buy from their site!