Drive Your Way

How many times did you need an extra drive? Or how many times have you searched for a file that was buried deep inside one of your disks and wished it would be out into the open for a better access? Or how many times did you wish you had a RAM drive for your games and for faster access? If the answer is yes on the line then you know what I am talking about.

There are all sorts of drive creating softwares out there, but unfortunately they do not do all those things I have mentioned above. Things are about to change as Extra Drive Creator is out for some time now and is ready to help you. Amazing thing about the application is not the price of $29.99, but its versatility in creating drives and the fact that it can crypt drives. This way you can store sensitive information on the drive and keep it safe.

The interface is extremely nice, simple and clean. There are no useless icons present and every single button and option displayed can be of use at one point. The main window displays all the removable and fixed drives you have on your computer. Label, size and free space information about each and every one of them is available.

The main options of the application are displayed vertically in the left side of the application window: Crypt Drive, Virtual CD, File to Drive, Folder Drive and RAM Drive. Once you have gotten yourself accustomed to working with one of them the rest of them are easy to manipulate.

Securing your virtual drive with a password is available only in Crypt Drive option. But worry not, as your password setting needs will be satisfied as the program can be also secured and a countersign can be applied to prevent launching by unwanted users. This can be achieved by going into Options menu.

The principle is simple. Choose one of the options in the left and follow the instructions. Yes, a wizard will guide you step by step until the entire process is over. In all cases double clicking on the available letter will open up the wizard.

Mounting a drive is made in a clean manner and with no difficulty whatsoever. A click of the mouse will suffice to mount it and making it visible in Windows Explorer or any other file manager you are using.

In the case of creating an encrypted drive you will have to format it as soon as the process of its creation is finished. Formatting can be done directly from the software on the fly or later from Windows. The drive is crypted using the "AES256" algorithm (also known as Rijndael, it is a block cipher adopted as an encryption standard by US government).

Size does not matter as you can create a virtual drive as large as all the available free space on your computer.

Folder Drive option is perfect for bringing to light deep buried folders on your computer. You can create a virtual drive that will be exactly the desired folder. This way you will not have to overstrain your index by clicking the mouse button to reach it. Once you have finished working with it you can safely dismount it. All the changes you have made in there and all the files you have saved in there will appear in the original location as well.

The Good

The application is pretty cheap and the ease of use is extraordinary. You do not need any knowledge regarding creating and mounting drives as it can all be done in just a few clicks. The versatility of the program extends to creating encrypted drives designed to keep your data safe, creating virtual CD drives, File to Drive, creating drives out of folders for an easier access, and creating RAM drives for a faster access.

Also, the RAM drive can be used to store OS Windows temporary files, cookies, IE cache files, etc. All of these files will be instantly deleted once the system is rebooted.

The Bad

The application is WYSIWYG, and all the promised is delivered, no exceptions made.

The Truth

A truly reliable software that has an installer of only 575KB. That's right, it is not a typo, those are kilobytes.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:


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