Pls, help very dumb and confused, purchased entire suite of SlySoft

[MonkeyMonk]

I am very confused. I purchased the entire suite of SlySoft software, prior to GameJackel. So, I have all but GameJackel; I do not have GameJackel. My system is VISTA home premium (***Grr, pulls out hair and sobs***)

I would like to mount a movie/DVD to my Virtual Clone drive, but apparently I have to do something to make the backed up movie into a CD.

When I open CloneCD, there are so many choices I don't know what to pick.

I am so lost. I'm sure there is a way to back up a movie/DVD and make it a "sheep"

Can some patient person assist me in the process of doing this. (I have read faq's and other possible posts and I am still very ignorant and in a fog.)

Thank you so very much in assisting me! (((***big hug***)))

 

[MonkeyMonk]

Ooops, I needed to post again

because I forgot to subscribe.:doh: :doh: :doh:

 

[SamuriHL]

Make sure AnyDVD is running...the red fox icon in the system tray down by the clock...open CloneCD. Insert the DVD you want to backup/mount. Select read. This will read it to an image file on your hard drive. If you installed Virtual CloneDrive, you will have a new drive letter associated with the virtual drive. Right click on the drive letter in explorer and select mount. Select the newly created CloneCD image and you are then good to go.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

Thank you, but minor snafu still

OK, I clicked the read (eye glasses) and I chose my dvd drive with the movie in it and then CloneCD told me it cannot get exclusive access to the dvd drive and to close any files folders or programs. But, nothing other than AnyDVD is accessing that drive.

I am so sorry to be so dumb. I know these are great programs. And, I really appreciate your patience with me! Thanks!

 

[SamuriHL]

Try rebooting and see if that helps.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

ThankYou, SamuriHL! (*bow of the head*)

If you were here, I'd buy you a hot fudge sunday and make sure it had extra of everything you liked. I am so grateful!!! :agree: VISTA has been driving me nuts...

 

[SamuriHL]

It has that effect on people. It's good that you got it all working.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

SamuriHL-san, Two new questions

I mounted 2 movies, both anbout 4GB. SpyGame (my favorite movie in the whole world) and Instinct (Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Gorillas in the wild, my 2nd favorite movie in the whole world), but the last one copied/mounted keeps opening no matter which "sheep" drive I pick.

Also, the place where the files go from CloneCD, do they stay there or do they go to the drive? Am I using 8GB (4GB files on C, and 4GB files on the clone drive, too?)

It doesn't want to let me delete the files on the C drive after it's mounted, but the "sheep" drive also shows 4GB.

This time SamuriHL-san, the reward is Plum wine, Hong Kong steak, and iced lichee nuts. (((hugs)))

 

[SamuriHL]

No, it's not taking up more space when you mount it...just the image file. When you mount the image, yes, that image is in use and can't be deleted until you unmount it.

I'm not sure what you mean that it always keeps mounting the last image only. That's an option you can set in VCD. Just right click on the drive, select unmount, and then select mount and select a different image.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

If I understand correctly. I can make a folder with subfolders for each movie, and then just mount them when I want to play them and unmount them when they are done playing. Yes? Then, I really need only one sheep and the one sheep does all the work. Yes?

So, then why do we get up to 8 sheep? (I had thought each sheep was to be a movie, but what you said makes sense. And, I re-doing everything logically.)

But, how would one make use of the other 7 sheep?

(Pours us each another sip of Plum wine, geisha comes in and playes lute, steaks are sizzeling on platter)

 

[SamuriHL]

Ah, I see what you were doing before. Yea, no, just use 1 and mount the image you wish to use at any given point in time. Allowing up to 8 is for more advanced uses(like emulating multi-cd games or whatever.) In any case, you simply need 1 and just mount and unmount the images as needed.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

It worked! Yippie!!! I can use the one sheep for any number of movies. Vacation is gonna be sweet, not having to take all the DVDs. Kewl!

But, I'm still curious about the other 7 sheep. (Edited: answered while I was typing this. Thanks!)

Also, is there something in any of these programs that will shrink the DVD file to a playable CD file? I was wondering about free space on this new computer. It came with 142GB and was load so much so that it only had 86GB free space after deleting MSOffice, installing my old Word program, and deleting all Sony's pre-loaded movies.

So, I was wondering if any of these programs would shrink the DVD files to CD files and then save those files for mounting and unmounting.

(Another geisha comes in and dances with the fans, the cold lichee nuts are served with almond cookies. )

 

[MonkeyMonk]

Thanks again!!! It's working great!!! Think it's time I go to sleep and let those other 7 do their job in my mind as I drift off.

Oh I'm so glad, I got Spy Game permanently on my computer. That movie is so meaningful. I always get a tear in my eye at the end, no matter how many times I've seen it.

So, thank you so very much!!! (((****hug****)))

 

[SamuriHL]

There are ways to shrink things down, yes, but, the smaller you make it, the more the quality goes down. So yea, you CAN shrink them down to CD size, but, you will lose quality. I would just do a movie only backup and use something like Recode to shrink it to DVD-5 size and then create an ISO from that that you can mount. (CloneDVD can make the ISO from files on the hard drive using the write data option). CloneDVD can also compress, too, but, some, including myself, feel that it's not necessarily the best compression engine. This will shrink them down to 4.6 gig files. That should be a fairly acceptable compromise on quality vs space. If not, you'll want to look into other solutions. CloneDVD Mobile can certainly compress things into very small files with decent quality, but, again, the more compression you use the less quality you get.

 

[James]

Thanks again!!! It's working great!!! Think it's time I go to sleep and let those other 7 do their job in my mind as I drift off.

Just for your info: You can adjust the number of sheep with the "Virtual CloneDrive" icon on your desktop.

 

[MonkeyMonk]

Thanks for all the info!

I did run into a problem on play-back with the movie Instinct. I had copied it from TV and inorder to see the closed captioning I had to purchase and install TheaterTek, which supports Closed Captioning. The movie froze, task manager didn't work, I had to power off.

I don't think the problem came from the mounted movie, or any of the programs that I got here. I think Sony/Vaio had no business putting VISTA on a T5500, 2GB RAM.

VISTA really needs a faster processor especially for movie watching. Also, I think if I use the pre-installed InterVideo Win DVD program, the problem would not occur. However, that means no Closed Captioning because that player/software does not support Closed Captioning. (Shame on Microsoft! Shame on Sony! all this BS smoke and mirrors about accessability and they don't even intall a program that supports Closed Captioning. And, Sony puts in un-audible speakers and drives (Matshita) that are total crap!!! Well, both Microsoft and Sony have lost me as a customer. Next computer is going to be an Apple or back to the trustable Toshiba's.

Also, just a personal comaprison, my old broken Toshiba was a nice, sweet baby, good speakers, good drive, able to jerry-rig any problem. Don't know why I lost my mind an bought a Sony... This Sony Vaio FE880E is pure crap...in components, and pre-installed never to use junk programs and movies.

Does anyone know where there is a tutorial for building a laptop system from scratch? I'd love to do that. I think it would be a great accomplishment to have under one's belt. (If anyone does know, I'm going to run out and get one of the last remaining boxes of Windows XP) So, please post for me if there is one for building laptops.

And, thanks everyone for sharing and helping me!!! (((hugs)))

 

[TCBW]

Image

If I understand correctly. I can make a folder with subfolders for each movie, and then just mount them when I want to play them and unmount them when they are done playing. Yes? Then, I really need only one sheep and the one sheep does all the work. Yes?

If all you want to do is watch the movie (ignoring any extras on the dvd) then you should use CloneDVDMobile to create a generic DivX copy. This will be considerably smaller than the image you are currently using. After you have used CloneDVDMobile then all you need to do is double click the AVI to view it.

You also need to know that although the file on your drive when you image is 4GB and the virtual drive is reflecting 4 GB this does not reflect a total of 8 GB. The virtual drive is using the same 4GB as the file on the C drive, so if you delete the file on C drive the virtual drive will no longer have access to the file and as a result you will lose your access to the movie.

Using images you should view them as an actual disk that you 'insert' into the virtual drive when you want to access them. Your assessment that you only need one virtual drive for this is correct.