CDEmu vs ImDisk

CDEmu emulates optical drives and discs on Linux, including CD-ROM and DVD-ROM media. Its kernel module provides a virtual SCSI host adapter that connects the Linux kernel with a userspace daemon, while libMirage gives access to many optical image formats, including MDS, CUE, BIN, ISO, NRG, UDF, DMG, CSO, GZ, DAA, and ISZ. Emulated media can be mounted in Linux, with automounting available. The project also describes experimental CD-R and DVD+R recording emulation, allowing blank virtual discs to be written with disc-burning software. Users can load and unload devices, check device status, and manage debug masks through command-line or GTK clients. The daemon exposes methods over D-BUS and can register on the session or system bus. System-bus use needs special permissions; session-bus use requires read and write access to the VHBA control device. CDEmu is free under the GNU GPL version 2 or later. The project lists official source tarballs and Linux distribution packages; third-party packages are not verified or formally supported.

ImDisk is a free Windows virtual disk driver for creating disk volumes from image files or system memory. It can present virtual hard disk partitions, floppy drives, and CD/DVD drives, with support for raw images, VHD, VDI, VMDK, NRG, SDI, and BIN formats. The installer provides the imdisk.exe console tool, a Control Panel applet, and an Explorer command for mounting files. I/O requests can be passed to third-party image handlers or services on other computers over a network. API functions are available to C/C++, COM, and .NET applications, with wrapper libraries on NuGet. The current installer supports 32-bit and 64-bit Windows and lists x86, ia64, x64, arm32, and arm64 architectures. ImDisk is free to download and use; a voluntary usage fee is welcome. The maker says it receives maintenance fixes, but no new features are planned and its legacy design is not recommended for recent Windows versions.