Working with ISO files

Software, Windows 1 Minute

If you’ve downloaded the beta releases of Windows Vista or Office 2007, you’ve had to deal with the ISO file format, which consists of an image of a CD or DVD. You can use most CD/DVD writing programs to copy the ISO file to a physical disk. In Nero 6, for instance, you use the Burn Image command on the Recorder menu.

In addition, there are software utilities that allow you to read an ISO file or mount it in Windows without burning a physical disk. This MSDN page has some useful links: 

Copying the contents of ISO files
The contents of image files may be accessed directly using third-party tools. Using this method you can extract the files from an image file to a temporary folder on your hard drive, then run setup. The following tools offer such image file support:

The products listed above have been known to work. Other products that can manipulate ISO files may work, but have not been tested.

Mounting ISO files virtually

The following tool for Windows XP allows image files to be mounted virtually as CD-ROM/DVD-ROM devices. This tool is provided here for your convenience, and is unsupported by Microsoft Product Support Services.

Nero 6 Ultra Edition (and presumably Nero 7 as well) has an ISO mounting tool called Nero ImageDrive. It’s incompatible with Windows Vista, however, as is the free Microsoft tool linked here.

Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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12 thoughts on “Working with ISO files”

  1. Daemon Tools really should be listed under “Mounting ISO files virtually”. In fact, it’s the best tool out there for that purpose.

  2. I was kinda confused at first with the post. Since posting has been pretty Vista “heavy” lately, I was looking at this post being specific to offering tips for mounting the Vista (or Office 2007) ISOs (even though that clearly is not the intention after a few careful re-reads.

    I’ve been a longtime user of IsoBuster. I love it. It a fantastic tool for making images of (most) disks, recovering data from damaged disk media, and browsing/extracting the contents and disk structure of disk media and disk image files.

    I hadn’t heard of CDmage before this post, but I downloaded a copy and briefly played with it. It is a nice and tiny little application similar in function to IsoBuster.

    I’ve been using DaemonTools for many years now and absolutely love it. It allows one to mount ISO images as a vitural CD/DVD drive. It’s great for testing ISO images and keeping oft-used CD/DVD’s on my hard-drive, while leaving the CD/DVD tray open for other things. Some folks have run into installation errors with it. I never have.

    Another tool not mentioned in this list is Alcohol 120%

  3. Claus,

    Actually, you can use just about any of these tools to mount an ISO in XP and do either a clean install or an upgrade to Vista.

    I have yet to find an ISO mounting tool that works in Vista. If you run across one, let me know.

  4. Post comment got clipped when I posted….continuing…

    I used this product (Alcohol 120%) for some time before switching to Daemon Tools. It also allows the creation of ISO files from physical disk media as well as mounting of ISO files as virtual drives. I haven’t used the newer versions for some time, however…

    I have read in a number of forums that neither Alcohol 120% nor Daemon Tools can be loaded/installed on Vista RC1 (by design of Microsoft or not–unclear). And that attempts to do so led to “bad-things” happening….

    I successfully used Daemon Tools on my XP systems (Home/Pro)to mount the Vista RC1 ISO file “virtually” and then connect to that drive via Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2004 to “mount” the Vista disk in my Virtual PC installations of Vista. Seems the Virtual PC 2004 software can’t mount the type of ISO/disk that Microsoft released Vista RC1 as….

    IsoBuster and CDmage are great for extracting data from ISO files without burning them to disk…but cannot be used to “mount” an ISO as a virtual drive to your system (that I am aware of at least)…

    Daemon Tools, Alcohol, and the Nero application listed can be used to mount the ISO files as “virtual” drives to your systems.

    Thanks for sharing all the neat details on Vista, Ed! I’m learning a lot of new things and then rushing over to my Vista Virtual PC session to test them out!

  5. Ed,

    Do you have a link/tip on how to use IsoBuster or CDmage to “Mount” an ISO as a virtual drive-letter recognizable by the system?

    I spent a good deal of time yesterday on the web and in the IsoBuster Help files/site trying to figure out how to do that after reading this post for the first time.

    I like the idea of being able to mount an ISO file as a virtual drive that the system can see/access without all the system hooks that Alcohol or Daemon require…I can carry/run IsoBuster on a USB stick/portable drive so being able to use it that way along with some ISO images would be rockin’ cool and useful…instead of having to install either of these other products on an end-user’s system…

    I didn’t mention the XP software posted because…well…I tried it once and just too clunky and fickle to be of any real “production” level use.

    Thanks Ed!

  6. Listen-
    C: – 30 gig HDD, 7 gigs free; has Win XP Home on it.
    M: – 80 gig HDD, 50 gigs free; has mostly music files stored on it.

    Let’s say I extract the necessary files from the ISO to the M: drive and then run setup from there. Will I be able to upgrade Win XP as things now stand or do I still really need to have 15 gigs free on that C: drive??? Because, I really don’t want to have to go through the exercise of copying everything over to a bigger drive first and then doing the upgrade, etc., or, re-installing every single program and driver, etc…..if I don’t have to.
    Thanks, Ed, and everyone.

  7. I’ve just installed DAEMON Tools 4.0.6 (released just last night) on my Vista RC1 x64-system. Works fine so far!

  8. One MAJOR feature they should’ve put in Vista is native ISO support…..editing, creating, extracting, burning and mounting ISOs.

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