Create A Virtual Drive in Windows

A virtual drive in computing is a device that to the operating system appears to be an ordinary physical disk drive, with disc images substituted for disc reading hardware through the use of software called a disk emulator.

In Windows there is subst command which make a virtual drive for you. Here is all information about subst command.

About subst

Allows you to substitute a folder on your computer for another drive letter. Use the SUBST command to substitute a drive letter for a path in order to treat a virtual drive (a reserved area rather than an actual disk drive) as a physical drive. 

In order to enter drive designations using any letter (other than just the letters for the physical drives installed in your computer), you may have to add this line to a CONFIG.SYS file that should be placed in the root directory of your startup drive:

Availability

The subst.exe command is an external command that is available in the below Microsoft operating systems.

MS-DOS 3.1x and above

Windows 95

Windows 98

Windows ME

Windows NT

Windows 2000

Windows XP

Windows Vista

Windows 7

Syntax

subst [drive1: [drive2:]Path]

subst drive1 : /d

Parameters

drive1 :   : Specifies the virtual drive to which you want to assign a path.

drive2 : : Specifies the physical drive that contains the specified path (if different from the current drive).

Path   : Specifies the path that you want to assign to a virtual drive.

/d   : Deletes a virtual drive.

/?   : Displays help at the command prompt.

Examples

To create a virtual drive Z for the path D:\music\movies\zaher, type:

"subst z: D:\music\movies\zaher"

"

Now, instead of typing the full path, you can reach this directory by typing the letter of the virtual drive, followed by a colon, as follows:

z:

Remarks

• The following commands do not work, or should not be used, on drives used in the subst command:
  • chkdsk 
  • diskcomp 
  • diskcopy 
  • format 
  • label 
  • recover

The drive1 parameter must be within the range specified by the lastdrive command. If not, subst displays the following error message:

Invalid parameter - drive1:

Other Tools for Virtual Drive:

• Subst
• Diskpart 
• ImDisk
• RAM disk
• Mount, losetup, tmpfs, fuse
• Comparison of ISO image software
• CD/DVD copy protection
• Daemon Tools
• Virtual disk image
• VirtualDrive Pro