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How To Rip & Mount Multiple ISO’s Easily (Windows Only)

via MakeUseOf.com by Karl L. Gechlik on 3/14/09

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.

Now with ISODisk I can mount my ISO's from the network as a drive letter. I can share them out over the network 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 me load up multiple 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.

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

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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:

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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.

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

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

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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 to a ISO using our free little application.

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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.

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