Phantom Drive

Phantom Drive is a simple-to-use application that allows you to burn CDs, common and HD DVDs, along with Blu-ray discs. It install a virtual recorder.

Lengthy setup and simple UI

The setup procedure is a pretty lengthy task during which the computer may become unresponsive. Once it's over, you can launch the tool to create a new blank disc, insert an existing Phantom image, open a Phantom image folder existing on the hard drive, tinker with program settings, or view diagnostic information.

Create a new disc and configure app options

When creating a new disc, you can specify the type (e.g. CD, DVD, Blu-ray) and size. Alternatively, the app can be asked to create an ISO image that you can save locally, and to always create image files in full size until further notice. It's possible to select the new file's location.
As far as program settings are concerned, you can specify the actions to execute after burning an image (e.g. reinsert the image after burning of ejected, rename it to match the CD label, append text to the image file name), disable automatic checkups for software updates, remove the tool's entry from the Windows autostart sequence, or switch to another language for the interface, among others.

Evaluation and conclusion

The software application carried out tasks in reasonable time during our tests, during which it consumed minimal CPU and RAM. No error dialogs popped up, and it didn't freeze or crash. On the other hand, Phantom Drive hasn't been updated for a long time. You can take it for a spin to decide for yourself whether it's a reliable virtual disc writer or not.