yeah a Nocd patch is illegal and can not be used but there is a easy way of playing without the CD and legally to. I have posted it here before but i cant remember where so i will just say it again,
First do a full install (and copy movies and stuff to your harddrive) then rename your C drive (or any drive) to FF7DISC1 or whichever disc it is you want to run, To do this go to my computer and right click your C drive then click rename. then click your start menu then run then type regedit on XP or on vista just type regedit in the search bar then go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Square Soft, Inc.\Final Fantasy VII
then you should see "DataDrive" change this to
C:\
Or to whatever drive it was you renamed. This will make the game think your hard drive is the CD drive for FF7 and it will allow you to play without the CD,
I came up with this about 2 years ago because it was anoyning having to use external programs and i really used to dislike image tools (now they arnt as bad as they used to be but since i came up with this method i have just found it easyer to continue using this method).