Vat of Knowledge

OK, so this is a newbie post, but it needs to exist. There are many different types of images that can be used for data. Think about the times when you need a disc and don’t know which binder you put it in? Oh no, the disc is scratched, or worse broken in half! OK, so hopefully you made an image or you can download an image to replace it with.

ISO

These days I typically work strictly with ISO image formats. ISO is short for International Organization for Standards, and they are referring to the ISO 9660 format used with CD ROM media. It’s a way to create one file that contains all the files on a CD, and also maintains the boot sector of the media if it’s a bootable CD. There are several programs you can use to create ISO image files. I use one called “Ultra ISO”, and it does a great job of creating ISO files from a CD, as well as being able to add files to an ISO image and save it. Check it out here.

Burning images

Almost all burning software I’ve seen, Nero, Roxio, Sonic, will burn ISO images. There is also a free stand alone image burner called ImgBurn which can be downloaded here. Very easy to burn an ISO image.

Mounting images

Edit 12/15/09:  Windows 7 does not seem to work with the below freeware for mounting ISO images, or the likes of Daemon Tools, UltraISO (at least the version I have) and many others.  I’ve found that MagicISO (freeware) seems to work, download it here http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm

Almost easier than wasting a blank CD or DVD is to mount the image into a file system. There are a number of programs that can do this for you as well. Software such as Alcohol 120%, Daemon Tools, and of course the Ultra ISO software itself, can mount virtual images. The software typically installs one or more virtual CD/DVD ROM drives within the software, so you can see the extra drive(s) when you open My Computer. Right click on an ISO file, and you should have the option to mount it. A totally free driver has been put together by Microsoft to mount ISO images, but I have found it to be somewhat touchy and works “most” of the time.

Free Microsoft Virtual CD

Link is here. And here is the readme:

Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1

THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES

System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional

Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click “Driver control”
4. If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click “Start”
6. Click OK
7. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.

Linux mounting

Mount ISO across Samba share. This will mount a directory from a Windows share to the local file system on the Linux system:

mount -t smbfs -o username=<name>,password=<passwd>,domain=<domain> //sambashare /mountpoint

Mount the ISO itself. Now that we have access to the ISO file locally, let’s mount one or more of them up to the file system as well.

mount -o loop /mnt/samba/disk1.iso /mnt/disk

Floppy images

As important as CD images are floppy images. They are needed for bootable Windows 98 disks when you need them or BartPE (more on this in another post) disks. The best imaging software I’ve used is WinImage, downloadable here. It creates files with the IMA extension. Very useful for bootable floppy images.

The need for image files

Software is needed every day in a networked environment. You will find it to your benefit to keep both CD and floppy images on your network on a file server. When you need to access CD, DVD or floppy media anywhere on your network, it will be there. It makes it easier to deploy software across the network as well. It also acts as an archival method, to have different versions of software, as latest, is not always greatest.