MakeUseOf » mount

Mount ISO & IMG files With Furius Mount [Linux]

Justin Pot — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:01:15 +0000

Mount virtual disks quickly in Linux. With support for ISO, IMG, BIN, MDF and NRG files and a simple user interface, Furius is the go-to tool for Linux users wanting to mount a virtual file system.

ISO files, and their many brothers, serve a simple purpose – allowing you to store the entire contents of a CD or hard drive in a single file. This is useful when you’re downloading an operating system, or when you’re backing up your entire hard drive so you can restore it later. Sometimes though, you might want quick access to the files inside without burning the ISO to disk or restoring the environment to your hard drive.

That’s when “mounting” comes in. This allows you to browse the virtual file system from your computer directly. We’ve shown you 3 tools to mount disks as ISO images, but those programs were all for Windows. Macs mount such files by default, but Linux users need software for the job. That’s where Furius comes in. This simple software allows you to quickly create a mount point for a variety of virtual disks, including ISO files.

Using Furius

The main screen of Furius is simple and to the point:

Pick which file you want to mount, and where you want to mount it. Then click “mount“, and you’ve got access to the files inside your virtual filesystem. This is a great way to browse a full system backup or install packages from an ISO repository. Create a checksum file, if you want to ensure you’re looking at the right file. Most sites offering ISO downloads also offer a checksum; compare that one with Furius’ and you will know if you’ve got the right file.

The bottom half of the window shows you which ISO files you currently have mounted; you’ll find the mounted filesystems as a basic folder at the mountpoint you set:

Done with your mounted filesystem? Unmount it. Go back to your Furius window and click the “unmount” button, after highlighting the file you’d like to unmount.

Once you’ve done that, you’re done – the file is unmounted. You might run into problems if you’ve opened a file inside the mountpoint, so be sure to close everything before you unmount.

As you can tell, this program is simple to use. You can make it even simpler though, by setting it to mount any ISO file you open by default. Find instructions for that on the Furius website.

Install Furius

Ubuntu users can simply click here to install Furius.

Using a different Linux distro? Check your distro’s package manager, because Furius is probably there. If not, head to the Furius website to find downloads.

Conclusion

Increasingly, optical drives are becoming obsolete. Their digital versions, however, live on. Being able to access the file inside these digital representations of optical drives directly, without the need to use a consumable CD, is very nice. And Furius makes that easy.

What are you using Furius for? Is it useful for you, or do you know a better way of mounting such files? Share in the comments below. I’d love to join you for a conversation, as always.

How To Create Disk Images & Mount Them On A Virtual Drive [Windows]

Jeffry Thurana — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:31:17 +0000

One of my acquaintances, who has just got his first personal computer, has a weird new hobby – buying and copying CDs and DVDs (music, applications, movies) to his laptop’s hard drive. His reason is that he wants to put his collection all in one place, and he has plenty of storage space to spare. But being a first time computer user, he used a bit of a strange way of doing it. He copied everything inside the discs and pasted them onto the hard drive.

The results were various. Some of the copy-paste attempts were successful while others failed. When he asked me for a solution, I told him that simply copying the contents might not work for some discs. A better way would be to record them as disk images and then mount them using a virtual drive.

Why Would Anybody Want To Create A Disk Image?

The first time I met the concept of a disk image was in the late 90′s when I unsuccessfully tried to play a computer game without the CD. Back in those days, many software makers required that the installation/data CD’s were to be present in the tray before the application could run. If you used many applications and each one of them required several CD’s, repeatedly inserting and changing those CD’s could become very annoying. It would be much better if users transformed those CD’s into disk images and mount them using virtual drives.

Another advantage of using a combination of disk images and virtual drives is the number of virtual drives you can use. While normal computer users would never install 20 optical disc drives on their CPU, anybody can easily set up 20 virtual drives on their system.

Then there’s the performance issue. Running mounted disk images is faster and less resource hungry than letting the system read everything from the physical disc. This method also means a longer battery life for mobile computer users. Converting physical discs into disk images also means that you can use the discs virtually from any computer that doesn’t have an optical drive such as small netbooks.

Last but not least, after copying the discs as images, you can safely store them away and prolong their lifetime.

Creating Disk Images

Even though there are downloadable disk images on the web (Ubuntu Installer being one of them), the most common way to acquire disk images is by converting the real CDs with the help of disk imaging application. Most CD/DVD burner apps can accomplish the task, but one of the simplest free disk image software solutions that I found is ISO Recorder. This app will give you right-click access to create images.

Downloading the tiny installer (less than 800KB) and installing the app will set you back only a few seconds.

After that, creating disk images is as simple as right clicking on the inserted real disc and choosing “Create image from CD/DVD“.

The next step is to choose the location to save the images.

The app will replicate the disc. The process could take some time, depending on the size of the disc and the speed of your system.

After the operation is completed, click the “Finish” button to exit ISO Recorder.

Repeat the process to create more disk images.

Adding Virtual Drives

To mount disk images, you’ll need to add/create virtual drives using virtual drive tools. One of the easiest tools you can try is Virtual Clone Drive.

During the setup, you can associate several disk image formats to be automatically opened with Virtual Clone Drive.

The app will act as if it is installing a new hardware, so your computer will ask for your confirmation whether or not you want to continue with the installation.

After installation, the app will quietly reside in the System Tray.

Clicking on it will open the “Settings” window. There are several things you can customize here, but I think the most important one is the option to set up how many virtual drives you want to add to your system.

After that, mounting the disk images to one of the available virtual drives is only a matter of right clicking on the disk images and choosing “Mount“.

Using a combination of disk images and virtual drives, you can create as many images as you want (provided you still have room on your hard drive), mount as many images as you need, and keep them open all the time if you want to.

Obviously, the two free disk image software tools mentioned above are not the only available options. There are many other alternatives you could try, including a couple that Tim recently highlighted. What are the disk imaging and/or virtual drive tools of your choice? Please share them using the comments section below.

3 Free Alternatives To DAEMON Tools For Mounting Image Files

Tim Brookes — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 01:31:07 +0000

The ability to use a virtual drive to mount optical media from a file will undoubtedly save you time and effort, but if you’re a Windows user then your operating system can’t do it without a helping hand.

For years DAEMON Tools has been regarded by many as ahead of its class in this field, but it is not without its rivals. If you’re searching for a decent alternative then we’ve got 3 hot tips right here.

If you’re using Linux then you can get better instructions here, these apps are Windows-only.

Do I Need A Virtual Drive?

You only really need a virtual drive if you want to mount image files. Image files are digital copies of optical media, such as CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. It is possible to rip the entire contents of a CD (or other optical media), and then mount it with image mounting software.

The software (in this case DAEMON Tools) installs a virtual optical drive on your PC, which functions exactly the same as a normal drive ““ only instead of physical media, you feed it image files. You can then access the image file as if you had put a disc into your computer. If you download software or applications and want to avoid burning the downloaded file to a CD, then you can simply mount your chosen software in the virtual drive.

You could even rip often used media so it’s that little bit easier to access. Using virtual drives in this way can vastly speed up your workflow, especially with multiple-disc installs.

DAEMON Tools Lite

There exists a free version of the commercial DAEMON Tools product line, DAEMON Tools Lite. This is the best alternative to the paid versions, with a few restrictions imposed over the pro edition. The interface is familiar and easy to use, and there’s plenty of power beneath the hood.

Not only will it mount a wide variety of familiar and obscure file types (.MDX, .MDS/.MDF, .ISO, .B5T, .B6T, .BWT, .CCD, .CDI, .CUE, .NRG, .PDI, .ISZ) but you can also have up to 4 simultaneous virtual drives (which should suffice for personal use).

DAEMON Tools Lite also includes the ability to make disc image files from your own optical media. As this is the free version, you can only rip to .MDS/*.MDF and .MDX.

Alternatives

Maybe you’ve tried DAEMON Tools, decided it’s not for you and fancy something else. You may also be one of the unlucky few who experience problems with the program, and need something a bit different.

Here are 3 good alternatives to DAEMON Tools that won’t cost you a penny.

WinCDEmu

The first on the list is the completely free and open source WinCDEmu. As there are no commercial versions of the software, the free version packs everything the developers could come up with into one cost-effective package.

Mountable images are limited to: .ISO, .CUE, .NRG, .MDS/.MDF, .CCD and .IMG. This isn’t quite as many as DAEMON Tools, but the major formats are fully supported. WinCDEmu completely integrates with Windows Explorer, allowing you to simply double-click a supported image file for it to be immediately mounted. You can then unmount the disc image using the right-click context menu from My Computer.

WinCDEmu should suffice for most common disk image tasks. What’s more its free and open source to boot.

Alcohol 52%

Brought to you by Alcohol Software, Alcohol 52% is the smaller, non-commercial edition of the popular Alcohol 120% image tool. It supports the mounting of common image file formats and a maximum of 6 virtual drives in this free edition.

Alcohol does not integrate with Explorer quite in the same way as WinCDEmu, instead you must add your image files to Alcohol first and then double-click to mount them.

This version is free for non-commercial and personal use only, otherwise you’ll need a licence. Don’t forget to uncheck that pesky Alcohol Soft Toolbar that’s bundled along!

Note: if you’ve been using Alcohol 120% and want to downgrade to this free version be sure to remove your old version first.

Virtual CloneDrive

We’ve mentioned it before, and for good reason. Virtual CloneDrive is a freeware image mounting tool with the usual support for common formats (including .ISO, .BIN and .CCD) and a whopping 8 virtual drives. You may get a Windows driver warning whilst installing, but soldier on and click Continue Anyway to proceed with the installation.

Once installed you can associate your image files with the program so that in future all it takes is a double-click to mount. Virtual CloneDrive is simple, cost-free and effective.

Conclusion

We’ve already covered a lot of optical media tools, but it’s always nice to have a selection. All of these programs should work on machines running the Windows XP, 2000, Vista and 7 operating systems. let us know if they work out better than DAEMON Tools for you.

Do you have any preferred image mounting software? Have your say in the comments.

Image credit: Shutterstock

How To Extract ISO Files With Linux

Tim Brookes — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:30:46 +0000

You’ve probably downloaded an image file before, and there’s a good chance it used the popular .ISO file extension. These (usually quite large) files are essentially digital optical media, and all files contained within that media are wrapped up into the .ISO archive.

Unlike Windows, Linux has built-in support for mounting and manipulating image files. This means you don’t necessarily need third party software in order to access .ISO archives and the files contained within.

There are in fact a couple of ways of going about this, so you can choose a method which suits you.

ISO ISO Baby

The image file format has been a popular way of distributing software online since broadband speeds allowed us to do so. Chances are you installed your Linux distribution using an .ISO file, possibly one you prepared in good old Windows.

The .ISO file format simply archives the contents of an optical media disc using the ISO 9660 file system. It is also possible for these images to use the UDF (Universal Disc Format) file system in some cases. The data within the archive is uncompressed, and an .ISO image can be made from any optical media ““- CD, DVD, HD-DVD (remember those?), BluRay and so on.

It is not possible to use the .ISO file format to create an image of an audio CD as these do not use a computer filesystem. In these cases .BIN/.CUE image combinations are often preferred.

If you want to gain access to the files within an .ISO archive, first you’re going to need to mount it. You can either opt for the command-line method or you can use a program with a graphical interface if you’re not fond of text-based commands.

Some distributions may have provided software so you can extract via the right click menu. Before starting out, find your .ISO image, right click and look for the Extract Here option. You might just be pleasantly surprised!

Extracting an .ISO Using the Command Line

This isn’t as hard as it sounds, it’s just a matter of getting the syntax right in the command. First you’ll need to create a folder in which to mount the image, open your command line editor and enter:

sudo mkdir /mnt/iso

Enter you password when asked, and your directory will be created. Now we can mount the file by typing:

sudo mount -o loop .iso /mnt/iso

Replace with the location of your .ISO file, for example I mounted a file in my Downloads folder using

sudo mount -o loop /home/tim/Downloads/image1.iso /mnt/iso

Now you can navigate to the folder you created and access the files within the .ISO. If you want to grab the whole lot via the command line, you can copy the contents of the folder by typing:

sudo cp -r /mnt/iso /home/tim/Documents

This command would copy the whole lot to a separate “iso” folder in my Documents folder. The

-r

option instructs the operation to copy recursively, which includes folder contents.

You don’t necessarily need to do this of course, as once you have mounted it you can use your file manager to pick and choose the bits you want.

Note: If the command used here to mount your .ISO fails, you might want to also try:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 .iso /mnt/iso

Extracting an .ISO Using Software

If the command line isn’t for you, there’s a couple of applications that mount and allow you to extract image files. They’re all free, as is the case with most Linux software.

Gmount-ISO

A simple graphical interface for the GTK+ environment that allows you to mount .ISO files in a directory of your choice. Input the path to your .ISO in the Image File field and the folder in which you’d like to display the contents in the Mount Point field.

Then simply click Mount and the contents of your image will appear in the directory that you specified.

Ubuntu and other distributions that use Synaptic can install via the command-line:

sudo apt-get install gmountiso

AcetoneISO

With support for a variety of image formats including .ISO, .BIN, .MDF and .NRG AcetoneISO is another powerful graphical interface for mounting and extracting.

AcetoneISO allows you to specify a folder in which your image files are located, or you can just choose Mount and point AcetoneISO to the right file.

Ubuntu and other distributions that use Synaptic can install via the command-line:

sudo apt-get install acetoneiso

Do you have any favourite image mounting programs? Do you use the command line method or a GUI? Let us know in the comments!

Mount Any Archive File In Two Clicks [Ubuntu]

Justin Pot — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:31:17 +0000

Archives are, of course, the best way to share multiple files on the web. What could be an unwieldy series of folders and data becomes a single download or email attachment.

It can be a little odd dealing with archives, however. On most operating systems there are two choices: open the archive with a specialized program or extract the contents to a folder and browse it using your file manager. This was largely true of Ubuntu, but not with the 10.04 release – it now allows for two-click mounting of any archive file.

When I wrote my writeup of Ubuntu 10.04 back in April I tried to summarize all of the new features of Ubuntu’s latest release, but I missed this one. I discovered it accidentally actually, while renaming an archive file.

So far as I can tell, Archive Mounter work with any file that Archive Manager does. This includes ISO, TAR, ZIP and even RAR, meaning you can mount most any file directly from your file manager.

Using Archive Mounter

This really doesn’t have to be complicated. Instead of opening a given archive, simply right-click the file in Nautilus and then click “Open with Archive Mounter” For example, here’s me opening some alternative icons for Dropbox:

Once you’ve done this your archive will show up as a “drive” in Nautilus, looking like this:

You’re done; you can now grab any files you like from the archive with your default file browser, which is in my opinion a great deal simpler than dealing with a seperate program. Drag the files to where you’d like them, copy them, run executables without ever extracting the files.

When you’re done you can unmount the archive the same way you would any drive: click the arrow directly to the right of it, or right-click it and click “Unmount“. Your archive is now unmounted and can be deleted, if you like.

The only problem I’ve noticed is the inability to write to archives. There may be a workaround for this; do any readers want to share?

Make Default

If you’d like archives to mount when double-clicked instead of opening with archive manager, don’t worry: this is really easy to accomplish. Simply right-click a package, and then click “Properties.” Click the “Open With” tab and select Archive Mounter as the default program for opening that kind of archive.

That’s it. You’ll have to repeat this process for the various sorts of archives out there, but once you do so you’ll find interacting with archives just got a lot simpler.

Conclusion

Some may prefer the functionality of Archive Manager to this simple mounting app, but I like having the option of mounting my archives. I can pick out only files I want and copy them where I like, saving disk space compared to extracting everything. I also find Nautilus easier to deal with than the (excellent) Archive Manager, if only because all of my file browsing stays in the same place.

Of course, I know you guys won’t spare me your opinion. Is this little-discussed new feature in Ubuntu 10.04 something you use regularly, or even noticed was there? Do you prefer this way of grabing information from archives, or will you keep using archive manager (or some other program?)

Finally, would you like to point out that this was default in Fedora/Mint/Debian/whatever five years ago, and the I’m an Ubuntu fanboy who should be keeping up with every setting in every distro ever?

Well, I love comments…so go ahead give me some love!

How To Create Windows-Compatible ISO Disc Images on Mac OS X

Jackson Chung — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:30:20 +0000

I ran into this enigma a couple of days back. Here’s what happened: I needed to create a clone of a disc to be shared with friends and it had to be compatible with Windows (because it was a Windows-only disc anyway but that’s not the point). I knew for a fact that using Toast was a sure-fire way to create a clone of any discs. I began to do some research on Google, trying to find another method to create a Windows-compatible ISO disc image, without the use of any additional apps.

And guess what? Mac OS X does not disappoint. By combining the trusty Disk Utility and some black magic from Terminal, I was able to create an ISO on Mac OS X that works in both Mac and Windows. It’s actually pretty simple. Here’s how.

Insert the disc into the CD/DVD drive and launch Disk Utility. The disk will appear in the left column window. Click on it once so that its highlighted, as shown in the screenshot below.

Now that we have the source of the disc image selected, click on File->New->Disk Image from “insert name of source”. In the pop-up window which appears, select the Desktop as the destination just to make life a little simpler. Next, make sure that DVD/CD Master is selected as the Image Format — that ensures the contents of the disk are completely copied into a resultant .cdr image (Tip: keep the image’s name short and simple so that it can be easily reproduced).

Click on Save and the disc image creation process will begin, indicated by a progress window. Depending on how large the disc is, the amount of time that’s necessary varies.

When the cloning process is complete, check the Desktop and the .cdr image should be there. You can use this image on Macs, it works perfectly. However, to share it with Windows computers, we first need to convert it into a recognizable format. To do this, the help of Terminal is required.

Launch Terminal either by Spotlighting for it or directly double-clicking on the app in ~/Applications/Utilities/ and type in:

cd desktop

Then, enter this line of code to transform the .cdr to an ISO file:

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -joliet -o [filename].iso [filename].cdr

Substitute both instances of [filename] with the name of the .cdr image. As you can tell from the screenshot above, Terminal will create a new hybrid image. This image can be read in both Windows and Macs and uses ISO 9660 and HFS file systems.

So there you go. You can easily create cross-platform hybrid disc images with your Mac without the need for any additional applications. How neat is that? To mount the disk image in Mac, simply double-click on it. In Windows, CD/DVD mounting tools are required – Saikat featured a couple great tools and Jorge wrote about one which doesn’t require installation.

That’s just one of the few uses of Disk Utility. Jeffry used it to install Snow Leopard from his thumbdrive — check the article out, it’s really neat.

3 Simple Free Virtual Drive Tools to Mount Disks & ISO Images

Saikat Basu — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:01:36 +0000

ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization. You wouldn’t know it but it’s one of the most powerful non-governmental organizations in the world. These are the guys who set the universal benchmarks known as ISO standards.

Why are we discussing a world body in a tech site? It’s because they lend their name to a well known file format too.

The ISO file (.iso) is just an archive file format of an optical disk. It can be said to be an exact clone of a file system because it’s a byte for byte copy of a disk with all of its data and metadata. It’s a popular format for downloads and transport over the internet. Anyone who has downloaded a game, an OS like a Linux distro, or an OS update would know them by sight. Also, being an open standard format along with another called UDF it’s supported by all optical disc software.

ISO is not the only one of its kind. There are others, each created by a disk manufacturer and his competitor. Some others you may have come across include – img, bin, mdf, mds etc.

So how does one deal with these ISO files? There are several easy ways :

You can burn them directly to a disk.
You can open them like an archive (remember they are uncompressed archives) using archive tools like WinRAR.
You can mount them and treat it like a virtual drive.

Using widely available tools called free virtual drive software or Disk Emulators, it’s easy to mount an ISO file (or a disk for that matter) and use it as one would with a disk loaded in the CD tray.

Let’s load with three simple and free virtual drive tools.

Virtual CloneDrive

Virtual CloneDrive is a light 1.5 MB download which supports all common image formats such as ISO, BIN, IMG, CCD, UDF, DVD etc.

Mounting an image file is as simple as double clicking it or selecting it with a browse from the system tray. Virtual CloneDrive can mount up to 15 virtual drives at the same time.

Virtual CloneDrive is supported by Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64.

Note: During the installation an alert that Virtual CloneDrive has not passed the Windows Driver Signature Test and the Windows Logo Test crops up. Ignore and continue with the installation.

MagicDisc

MagicDisc is another light free virtual drive tool, downloading at 1.3MB. MagicDisc supports a large number of image formats like ““

BIN, IMA/IMG, CIF, NRG, IMG/CCD, MDF/MDS, VCD, VaporCD, P01/MD1/XA, VC4/000, VDI, C2D, BWI/BWT, CDI, TAO/DAO and PDI.

MagicDisc allows for the creation of 15 virtual drives and can also mount images on a networked machine. Mounting images is easy as the program also comes with an automatic image detection engine. MagicDisc can be set to auto-mount images after a reboot.

MagicDisc also comes bundled with a lot of other features like ““

It can make ISO images from a physical disk.
It has the ability to compress and encrypt ISO files.
It features an interface that can decompress UIF images to ISO format.

MagicDisc (v2.7.106) is supported by Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP /Vista/7.

DAEMON Tools Lite

DAEMON Tools Lite is the bulkiest of the trio with a 7.3MB download size. It is free for personal use. DAEMON Tools Lite supports a large number of image formats like ““

b5t (BlindWrite images)/b6t (BlindWrite images)/bwt (BlindRead images)/ccd (CloneCD images)/cdi (DiscJuggler images)/cue (Cue sheets)/ iso (Standard ISO images)/mds (Media Descriptor Files)/nrg (Nero images)/ pdi (Instant CD/DVD images)/ isz (Compressed ISO images).

DAEMON Tools Lite gives us four virtual drives to work with. The image files can be mounted from the tray icon with a right or a left click. An image catalog saves a record of all image files mounted.

Also, the DAEMON Tools Panel gives a convenient interface to all functions of DAEMON Tools.

The Mount’n'Drive Manager bookmarks all your image files to give one touch access to mount and use them. The manager handles all mounting and un-mounting functions of the image files.

The Disc Imaging utility is a handy for creating image files in MDS or ISO format from physical disks. The data can also be compressed or encrypted with a password.

The program’s settings also lists a host of functions like auto-mounting, blocking un-mounting while image is in use, hot key settings, association settings with image formats and an Advanced Tab which handles copy protection features.

DAEMON Tools Lite (v4.30.4) is supported by Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP /Vista/7.

Any of these three free virtual drive tools can stand up to the task of handling virtual disk jobs.We have previously featured a few other image mounting software’s on these posts…

How To Rip & Mount Multiple ISO Images Easily
Mount Zip Files, CD/DVD Images & Encrypt Folders
Mount CD or DVD Image Files Virtually Using A Portable App

Which one is your pick? Let us know about your favorite tools to mount disks and ISO images.

Image Credit: bobbigmac

AcetoneISO – Easy ISO Manager for Linux

Damien Oh — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:00:33 +0000

Other than the command line, have you ever wondered how you can manage your CD/DVD images (ISO) more easily and efficiency in your Linux machine? AcetoneISO may jolly well be the answer to your needs.

AcetoneISO is a feature-rich and complete software application to manage CD/DVD images in your Linux system. It runs the poweful fuseiso in the backend and provides a very user-friendly frontend for its users to handle the image file easily. If you have tried and used fuseiso before, you will know that it supports a large variety of CD/DVD images, including ISO, BIN, NRG, MDF and IMG, which in turn makes AcetoneISO a versatile and powerful tool.

Installation

AcetoneISO is found in the repository of all Linux distro, so it can be easily installed via the respective APT manager. Alternatively, you can also download the installation package for your distro.

When you first run AceToneISO, it will run you through the configuration process and help you to set up the environment for you to work in. There are some options that you are required to configure, including the ISO settings, selecting the default media player application, the file manager to use, and the storage directory.

To mount a CD/DVD image, you just have to select the “Open Image” option in the File menu. It will automatically mount the selected ISO file to the Virtual Drive folder in your Home directory. To unmount, simply highlight the respective file entry in AcetoneISO and click the unmount button.

Here is a warning: while testing the unmount feature in Ubuntu, I have found that I am unable to unmount the image within Nautilus. The only way to unmount the image is to use the unmount button in the AcetoneISO application. Some of you might be annoyed by this, but that is how it works.

Other than the default mounting and unmounting of image files, AcetoneISO also comes with other functionality to allow you to edit and manage your image files. Here are some of them:

Image conversion (with PowerISO)

AcetoneISO makes use of the great functionality found in PowerISO (free for Linux users) to provide some of the useful image conversion features to its users. You can now use it to convert image to ISO, convert Mac OS image (DMG file), extract image content to a folder (without mounting), generate ISO from CD/DVD and even create a ISO from folder(s).

Using the image conversion features require you to install PowerISO in your system. If you have not installed PowerISO, AcetoneISo will prompt you about it and help you to download and install.

Utilities

The Utilities menu comes with several functions such as mounting your image in a specified folder, generate the Md5-sum of the image, extract the boot image or even generate Cue for BIN/IMG images.

Archive manager

The archive manager feature is one powerful function in AcetoneISO. It allows you to split the image into several volumes (best used when the file size is too big), compress images, encrypt the images or even extract a RAR password-protected ISO (you will need to have the password before you can extract).

Working with Video/Audio

AcetoneISO can also be used to download, extract, convert video and audio component of an image. You can use it to rip a DVD (or generic video) to a xVid avi video file and convert a FLV (YouTube format) file to AVI. Better still, you can download YouTube and Metacafe videos right within the AcetoneISO application. Once you have downloaded the video, you can also extract the audio component from the video file (under the Audio menu). On a side note, you may also convert online video to mp3 audio using VidToMP3.

I am not sure how often you would have to deal with ISO or various image files, but when you do (and you are a Linux user), I am sure that AcetoneISO is the only tool you need to get everything done. It may not be the best yet, but it is getting close.

What other tools do you use to manage your image file in Linux? Shout out in the comments!

How To Rip & Mount Multiple ISO Images Easily (Windows)

Karl L. Gechlik — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:01:23 +0000

I deal with lots of ISO images, for installing operating systems, service pack updates and programs. Some of my tools reside in ISO images as well. I used to burn all my disks and bring them where they had to go.

In case you’re one of the readers who don’t know what an ISO image is, it’s an archive file, a bit like ZIP or RAR, but it’s uncompressed. In order to open and read the ISO archive it needs to be mounted.

Now with ISODisk I can mount my ISO images from the network as a drive letter. I can share them out over the network with others or run them locally on a machine without having to burn the image.

I know you are saying to yourself that lots of programs can mount ISO’s to your Windows machine, and almost every other application can rip ISO’s now. How is this application different?

I am glad you asked!

ISODisk stands out in my book because it will let mount multiple iso images on the same machine. So if I have 10 images I am going to need access to, I can load ISODisk and mount all my images and share them out. Now I have full access to all of them from any networked machine!

Let’s take a look at ISODisk.

You first go to ISODisk and download the 52KB installer. After it is installed you will need to reboot to get the CD driver mojo working. After you reboot, fire up ISODisk or simply right click on a ISO image.

This is the screen you will see on startup.

And this tab allows you to easily rip a CD to an ISO.

Let’s take a look at how easy it is to mount an image. I click on the Mount ISO Image as Visual Disk and hit the folder icon and browse for my ISO. I can also right click on an ISO anywhere on my network and mount it like so:

I choose my XP SP3 made from Nlite and right clicked choosing the new context menu option ““ Load into new emulated drive. My file was on the F:\ drive of it’s local machine so it made me an F:\ drive with my files in it.

Within seconds I had this pop up and it was ready to install!

And if I browse on over to My Computer I have a new F:\ drive as you can see below:

Notice that it comes up as a CD-Drive. This is awesome for some programs that require you to have the disk in the drive.

Now let’s take a look at how ridiculously easy it is to rip a CD (or rip multiple CDs) to a ISO using our free little application.

We click back on over to the Create ISO Image from CD-Rom tab and choose the drive from the drop down menu. When you made your selection hit the floppy disk icon and select a location to save your ISO.

Type in the ISO’s new file name and hit Open. It will begin to rip it. And that’s it! Easy as 1-2-3!

Do you have a favorite ISO tool that you would like to share with us? Maybe some other app to multiple ISO images or rip CDs? Put us on in the comments guys and gals!

Mount Zip Files, CD/DVD Images & Encrypt Folders

Varun Kashyap — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:01:25 +0000

Pismo File Mount allows you to mount ZIP files and CD images as folders. The files can be mounted ‘read-only’ or as ‘read write’ files. You can thus access the content without having to burn CD’s or extract a zip folder. This can also be useful if you want to preserve your CD/DVD media but still be able to access their content. Pismo File mount offers a lot many features besides these. Let’s have a look:

Mount Zip files as Folders

Pismo provides you the ability to mount most zip files as folders. Not only can you read the files that are contained in the zip file but you can also execute any executable file that might be contained in the zip file. This is made possible by the zip file reader included with Pismo.

However, what this also means is that currently you cannot write back to the zip files if you wanted to.

Mount CD and DVD images

Pismo File Mount also allows you to mount common CD or DVD image formats like ISO, DAA and others as a virtual folder. You can then access the CD/DVD image file just like you would access the contents of a CD when you insert it in the CD drive. At mount time you are presented with a number of options to fine tune the visibility and access of files.

Encrypted Private Folders

Pismo File Mount then allows you to create encrypted private folders. The contents of these folders are kept in an encrypted, compressed .PFO container. Click on File > New Private Folder , specify a password and that is all that is required to create a private folder for your sensitive data. You will have to mount the encrypted folder to access its contents, then you will be asked for the password you provided to authorize the access to your sensitive data.

Private Folders are not bound to a single system or user login and can be freely copied and moved between systems while locked just like normal folders.

Map folders to drives

You can also map the folders you mount with Pismo File Mount to drive letters for easy access. This feature however requires administrator privileges. Pismo File Mount chooses the drive letter automatically or you can choose an unused letter from the drop down menu. Also check out this alternative method to achieve similar results.

Download / Install

You can download Pismo File Mount here. The download is only 928 KB for the Audit Package build 047. Installation is simple, fast and clean. You should be ready to use this baby in under a minute!

Pismo File Mount is a very nice app. Now there is no need to unzip those zip files to access the contents, Virtually mounting CD/DVD images is great as well but the ability to maintain private folders is a killer!

Let us know what you think! Know of anything similar to Pismo? Tell us all about it!