Virtual disks in XP Pro

Hi all

Before I get redirected to an existing thread: I'm NOT talking about mounting an image of a CD/DVD image. DaemonTools, Alcohol - nope, that's not what I mean.

What I want to do is create virtual disks and folders, e.g. Z:\, Z:\Folder 1 etc

and add mappings to real files/folders on the real disks. I know I can do a one-to-one mapping using DOS "subst". But what I want is to be able to create virtual disks, virtual folders underneath them, and add in whatever I like from wherever I like: e.g.

Z:\Folder 1 (a virtual disk/folder) "contains"
File1 which is really in C:\Bla\AnotherFolder\
File2 which is really in G:\SubFolder\SubSubFolder
FolderA which is really the folder F:\SubFolder1\FolderIWantToMap
etc. etc.
Like you can (to a certain extent) in IIS.

After what seems like hours on Google, there is just one utility that does this: Virtual Disk from Bopsoft http://www.virtualfolder.net/

But the silly buggers have stopped supporting it, and won't even accept payment for registration! (The trial version is seriously crippled).

Is there anything else out there for XP?

thanks!


thething

 

I don't think you need any additional software for this. Just create a home network and share the folders you want to map. It doesn't matter that the comp is the only machine on the network. Then right click My Computer and Map Network Drive. Browse to a shared folder and that should do it.

 

Just to expand on this, once you have created a virtual drive you can create the nesting/sub-mapping by creating new shortcuts in the drive, as required.

 

Thanks Earthling

but what I need is to be able to add multiple files/folders from anywhere (could be 100 files/folders from 100 different locations) into one mapped folder or disk.

I take your suggestion about shortcuts, but they won't work in my case, as they'll appear as 1Kb "shortcut" files to the file system, not as the files themselves.

There are a million apps out there that allow you to map one folder to one drive letter (which "subst" does anyway!) - but none that allow this flexibility. Apart from that one utility, which I'd happily pay $19.95 for if only the bloody publisher would let me.

 

Well, I tried :-D

 

You did - thanks for trying!

 

I've found a good workaround with this Shell extension:

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

still under development, but it seems to work well. Most of the really clever functionality is Win7/Vista only, but HardLinks seem to work fine for me on XP.

So I can create hard-links in a separate folder, and then use subst to map a drive-letter to that folder. Not quite as flexible as I hoped, but it's 90% there.