DAEMON Tools is a
virtual drive
Virtual disk and virtual drive are software components that emulate an actual disk storage device.
Virtual disks and virtual drives are common components of virtual machines in hardware virtualization, but they are also widely used for various p ...
and
optical disc authoring program
Optical disc authoring, including DVD authoring, DVD and Optical disc authoring#Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray Disc authoring, is the process of assembling source material—video, audio or other data—into the proper logical volume format to t ...
for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Mac OS
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...
.
Overview
DAEMON tools was originally a successor of ''Generic SafeDisc emulator'' and incorporated all of its features. The program claims to be able to defeat most
copy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.
Copy protection is most commonly found on ...
schemes such as
SafeDisc
''SafeDisc'' is a copy protection program for Microsoft Windows applications and games distributed on optical disc. Created by Macrovision Corporation, it was aimed to hinder unauthorized disc duplication. The program was first introduced in 19 ...
and
SecuROM
SecuROM was a CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management (DRM) product developed by Sony DADC. It aims to prevent unauthorised copying and reverse engineering of software, primarily commercial computer games running on Microsoft Win ...
. It is currently compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10. DAEMON Tools has a special mode for proper operation of copies of discs with advanced protection (
SafeDisc
''SafeDisc'' is a copy protection program for Microsoft Windows applications and games distributed on optical disc. Created by Macrovision Corporation, it was aimed to hinder unauthorized disc duplication. The program was first introduced in 19 ...
,
SecuRom
SecuROM was a CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management (DRM) product developed by Sony DADC. It aims to prevent unauthorised copying and reverse engineering of software, primarily commercial computer games running on Microsoft Win ...
and
LaserLock LaserLock is a copy restriction system for CD-ROMs with 32-bit Windows applications introduced by MLS LaserLock International Inc. in 1995. LaserLock is supposed to check whether the original storage medium of a program is inserted. This check can b ...
, CDCOPS,
StarForce
The Starforce is a supervillain team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Its first appearance was in the comic ''The Avengers (comic book), Avengers'' #346 released in 1992, as part of the "Operation: Galactic Storm" st ...
and Protect CD), which are used on some discs with games.
Editions
Six editions of the product exist: Ultra, Lite, Pro Standard, Pro Advanced, Net and DT for Mac. A feature comparison is given below. Also, company provides two additional solutions for the data storage organization: DAEMON Tools USB 2 that allows sharing different types of USB devices between remote workstations and DAEMON Tools iSCSI Target 2 – a cross-platform solution that enables creating an
iSCSI
Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...
storage server and provides access to virtual or physical devices, along with
VHD images, within home or corporate network.
;Notes:
:A. Free for non-commercial use without technical support. Technical support and the right to use commercially may be purchased.
:B. In
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
, Freemium license is not available since ver. 4.45.1.
:C. Applies on to
.mds
and
.mdx
images.
:D. Supported output formats include
.iso
,
.mds/.mdf
and
.mdx
:E. The ability to split an image files into multiple files of fxed maximum sizes. Not supported by DAEMON Tools Lite, as of 22 February 2012.
:F. The ability to mount an image into a
folder on an
NTFS
New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...
drive
File format
The default file format of DAEMON Tools is Media Data eXtended (MDX). MDX is a
disc image
A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is usua ...
file format similar to
MDS/MDF images. It supports all of MDS/MDF format features except that all data is in one monolithic file only. The files of these types bear the filename extension of .
MDX file contains
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
of original media – specifically the main physical parameters of disc, such as layer breaks, sessions, tracks and other. It could be described as being an archive file containing all data from a CD/DVD. It also supports
data compression
In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
. MDX file includes the
magic number "MEDIA DESCRIPTOR" at the beginning of the file.
Controversy
On 13 February 2012, one of DAEMON Tools components known as MountSpace became a subject of privacy concerns. MountSpace, a service-oriented component gathers and sends information about disc images used in DAEMON Tools to mountspace.com along with users'
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
es. Although MountSpace can be disabled during installation, it is criticized for transmitting information despite being disabled and lacking a privacy policy.
The initial discovery of the concerning issue is attributed to Rafael Rivera of ''Within Windows'' blog.
Related programs
Y.A.S.U.
YASU ''(Yet Another SecuROM Utility)'' is a very small tool that works as a ''SCSI-drive protector''. It was created by sYk0 and can be used to hide emulated drives from
SecuROM 7 and
SafeDisc 4. YASU is a companion program for Daemon Tools and currently being hosted, supported and maintained by the Daemon Tools team. On March 4 of 2009, sYk0 announced development of Omen which is to succeed development of YASU. As of January 2010, development of Omen has been abandoned.
See also
*
Comparison of disc image software
This article is a comparison of notable software applications that can access or manipulate disk image files. It compares their disk image handling features.
Comparison criteria
This article compares two features: Supported file formats and ca ...
*
SCSI Pass-Through Direct
SCSI Pass Through Direct (SPTD) is a Proprietary software, proprietary device driver and API, application programming interface (API) developed by Duplex Secure Ltd. that provides a new method of access to SCSI storage devices. The SPTD API is ...
(SPTD)
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{Disk image emulators software
Disk image emulators
Windows-only software
Optical disc authoring software
Utilities for Windows