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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.

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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

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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!

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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!

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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!

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How to Backup CD/DVDs to PC and Play them From Backup

Tina — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:01:21 +0000

High quality CDs and DVDs have a lifetime of up to 30 years, while cheap blanks may fail after less than five years. Hence, hard disks, which are said to become error-prone after three to five years, may be less durable and reliable.

However, it’s much easier to transfer data from a hard drive, to date the capacity is much bigger, and when dealing with a mass of data, hard drives are of course cheaper, way faster and much more convenient to use for backups.

Now, even if you don’t make backups to CD or DVD, you probably own commercial discs, be it music, movies or programs you bought. If you don’t want to lose them due to “natural decay”, you will have to prepare a backup. Please mind that this is not an instruction to circumvent copy protection. In case you are dealing with copy protected media, you’d best learn how to treat them to achieve maximal lifetime. There is a very good article about CD and DVD Lifetime and Maintenance on Techworld. And to recover an already broken CD or DVD, you should refer to Bill’s recent article Free CD/DVD File Recovery Tool – CD Recovery Toolbox.

So how do you create a backup?

Most CD/DVD burners can save ISO files. Back in February Shankar wrote a great article introducing The Best, Free Alternatives to Nero CD/DVD Burner. Another great tool to extract ISO images from CDs or DVDs, is DuBaron’s open source CD2ISO. The tool does not require an installation, simply run the EXE file, select a drive and a target and go. CD2ISO does not read copy protected discs or audio CDs because it relies on a valid file system.

As you see, creating the backup is easy. And once you have it on your hard drive you can burn it to a fresh disc anytime. But why bother when you can read the backup directly from your hard disk!

Playback CD or DVD on your PC from Backup

Dolly, the first mammalian clone, has inspired the name and logo of SlySoft’s Virtual CloneDrive. With CloneDrive you can mount a virtual drive to playback CD or DVD backups in ISO, DUE, BIN, CCD, DVD, IMG or UDF format. The program supports up to eight virtual drives and it’s very easy to use.

After installation the tool appears as Elaborate Bytes folder in your Windows programs list. Open the Virtual CloneDrive menu and select how many drives you wish to mount. Check “virtual sheep” for the sheep head logo to appear as the drive symbol, to better distinguish the virtual from your regular drives.

To mount a CD image you can do two things. Either right-click the backup file and select >Open With >Mount Files with Virtual CloneDrive or right-click one of the virtual drives, select >Virtual CloneDrive and >Mount… from the menu, then browse for your backup file. Wait for a few seconds, then proceed as you would after loading a regular disc.

The advantages of using a virtual drive are manifold:
1. quick access to backed up CDs or DVDs
2. no need to carry discs
3. conserve your CD/DVD drive
4. less noise (especially on laptops)
5. less energy use

What is your experience with the durability of CDs and DVDs? Are you prepared to lose the first CDs you bought back in the 80’s?

(By) Tina is a regular MUO author. In her offline life she’s a PhD student interested in unraveling signaling events that determine cartilage and bone development.

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