Networking a Virtual CD drive

[Bob]

Problem:

Small network of 7 computers that use a lot of reference CD's for looking up
information. I have made iso images of the CD's and stored them on a large
drive on a system that has XP Pro w/SP-2. Since you cannot share a virtual
drive, I placed the image in a directory that can be shared.

On the other workstations, I mapped to the drive (and directory) and then
pointed the application at the datapaths. This works when the CD is in the
physical CD drive but not when it's a virtual drive. I get an error that
says "Can't unpack".

Question:

I'm obviously missing something here but can a virtual drive be shared and
accessed on the network? I'm using the MS iso-recorder (Alex Feinman)
program and the VCD Control program for assigning and mounting virtual
drives.

Thanks,

Bob S.

 

[David Vair]

I don't think you want iso images of the CD's , you would want actual copies of the contents on the
CD on the network drive. The programs being used are looking for actual files by name.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Did you also install the "virtual CD" access sofware onto each PC??

 

[Bob]

That is probably the obvious answer that I'm overlooking and I'll give it a
try. I'll make a flat-copy Xcopy of each DVD/CD to a folder, map that and
see what happens.

Thank you,

Bob S.

 

[Bob]

Yes, that is the software needed to mount the virtual drive (iso image). I
think the answer is that I just need to make a flat-copy of the DVD's and
CD's to folders, share them, then map to those. It's worth a try.

Bob S.