How to Copy CDs to Your Hard Drive

Q: In the early days of computing, I had a program that created a virtual drive within my hard drive. I could copy a program or game from a CD to the drive and run it from there. Is there a similar program available now? - Art Zabell, Berwyn

A: Try VirtualDrive Utility and Burning Suite from FarStone.

Virtual Drive will create an image of any CD on your hard drive, making it possible to install programs and play games off the hard drive.

When I played with VirtualDrive, it was able to copy every CD I subjected to it.

However, FarStone warns that copyright protections on some programs or games may make them impossible to copy to the hard drive.

VirtualDrive is a bit difficult to use, but a 134-page manual eases the pain.

Cnet.com offers Virtual Original CD Drive Emulator 2.2.

But the editors award it only three stars, out of a possible five. It is available at the download site below.