If you’re even a little tech minded, you would most probably know what an ISO image is by now. A lot of ISO images can be downloaded legally from the internet such as a Windows 7 install DVD, Live Boot CD’s and Antivirus rescue discs which all come in ISO form and you’ll usually have to burn them to CD, or use a utility to write the images to USB stick to test them out.
Sometimes I would like to test an ISO image first before burning it to a CD. Recently I’ve been trying to merge a few ISO images into one to create a multi-boot CD. With the ability to test the ISO image first, I don’t need to waste CD-Rs. Even if I can use CD-RW, it is still inconvenient because I don’t need to waste my time in burning the disc and booting up my computer with the CD-RW.
There are a few ways to actually mount an ISO in Windows to be able to read the contents of it. A portable tool which is able to mount and run the ISO virtually allowing you to test it quickly is MobaLiveCD. While MobaLiveCD is great for quickness and ease of use (because it can also be attached to your ‘Send to‘ menu), it uses Qemu as the virtual emulator and booting into larger ISO images can be incredibly slow.
The image above shows Kaspersky Rescue CD booted up in a virtual machine without burning to CD. While something like MobaLiveCD is good at testing small images, for testing something larger, I think other virtualization software like Virtual PC, Windows 7′s XP Mode or VirtualBox are much better suited all round.
Here’s how I test an ISO image without burning to a disc using Oracle VirtualBox. Of course, you can use any of the other virtual machine software to get a similar result. I also have Virtual PC 2007 installed and it too does a good job of mounting ISO images for testing, but for this article VirtualBox is used because it’s freely available to run on all Windows systems.
Simply follow the steps to load an ISO image into VirtualBox:
1. Download and install VirtualBox.
2. Run VirtualBox from Start -> Programs -> Oracle VM VirtualBox -> VirtualBox.
3. Click the New button and a new virtual machine wizard window will appear. Click Next.
4. Enter any Name and select an O/S Type. It doesn’t matter what you enter in here because it’s only for your own reference. (For example, I use the name “Load ISO Images” and OS Type as Other/Unknown)
5. Select the amount of base memory (RAM) to be allocated to the virtual machine. The default is 64MB but I Recommend at the very least 256MB because a lot of bootable O/S images load parts of the system into memory to speed things up when running from CD. 512MB – 1GB is enough for most boot discs.
6. At the next screen, you’ll need to create a virtual hard disk. Click the New button, then click Next. It’s not actually essential to create a virtual hard disk for a bootable ISO to function, but some will complain about the lack of a partition or system drive if one isn’t present. If you want to try without a virtual hard disk, untick Startup Disk and skip to step 9.
7. When asked to select a virtual disk type, any of them will do, although a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) is readable natively in Windows 7 and also Virtual PC/XP Mode. Click Next.
8. A dynamically expanding image initially occupies a very small amount of space on your physical hard disk. It will grow dynamically as the Guest O/S claims disk space. As for fixed-size image, it is fixed to what you specify in the window and does not change. Click Next again at the next screen which asks you to set the virtual disk location and size. The default size is 2GB but can be reduced if space is a concern. Click Next.
9. The last screen will give a brief summary of your settings. When ready click Create.
10. Now you’ll see the new virtual machine that you’ve just created on the list. Select the virtual machine and click the Settings button.
11. On the left pane of the settings window, click Storage, in the storage tree click Empty which represents an empty ROM drive. Then use the button far right to browse for an ISO image or choose from the recent list. The details about the image will show in the information area. The Live CD/DVD tickbox will keep an ISO loaded even if it is ejected by the guest system. Press OK.
12. Finally, click Start button to boot the virtual machine with the ISO image file.
Please don’t be frightened by the long 12 steps. It is actually very simple once you’ve go through all the steps once and get to know the procedure. The power of the virtual machine can also be increased by changing some of the settings such as the number of usable processor cores, graphics memory, enabling/disabling network or sound and hardware virtualization etc.
Thanks – I could not figure out how to boot from daemon tools before!
Hi didstro. I’ve waethcd this video and it’s so cool what you do. But I’ve been using Linux since last year but I want to have more experience to develope myself as a Linux user, being unaware of how complicated is to install this system for a newbie like me I downloaded the minimal installer cd and the Live DVD version of this O.S. when I tried the DVD I found myself in a huge deal, the DVD doesn’t have any application to install the system graphicaly and I can’t configure my DSL wired internet connection (I use PPPoE) with the Terminal or with the Network Manager it has either.So my question is: if I can’t install the system graphicaly with the DVD how can I install a Gentoo system to my computer with the DVD? If there is some way, otherwise I can’t believe I downloaded that, it was in vain.Thank you in advance.
THANK YOU! This was such a help!! :DD
So stupid … thanks for explaining what ISO mean …
thanks for explaining what you know and not what we want to know. So stupid
S3nd41, if there’s no CD/DVD tab then go to “Storage” instead. In the storage section select the item under “IDE controller” and then to the right of that you’ll see an option for CD/DVD and a way to select the iso image.
When I go to the settings after having created my new machine I don’t have any CD/DVD tab, what’s the problem?
thanks!!!!
i had been looking for this piece of information.
Great work bro…thanx a lot 4 sharing..
“an alternative would be MobaLiveCD, it’s a single EXE, even no need to install it:
mobalivecd.mobatek.net/en/”
Now THAT is the Shiz Nizzle! It worked. It’s Simple. And it’s free!
Thanks a lot for this article.. Virtual Box is a nice tool
otherwise id have to use VMware which is quite more troublesome.. and it’s not free..
nice,i’lll try it…m ur ardent follower
Can you do a tutorial on how to merge different ISOs to one boot disk? I’d love to be able to combine a few of my favorite small boot disks onto one super boot disk.
Hi Raymond
Nice Post
The watermarks in the pictures are great
Can you post some article regarding free watermarking softwares.
I need a watermarking software.
Well done Raymond, you rule (again)!! I\’d procrastinated trying out a Virtual machine for months, but it was super easy to do using your guide.
I\’m initially using mine to test new \’burns\’ of BartPE, so much faster than changing/burning CD/booting/testing…
Actually to overcome my technofear I initially tried MobaLiveCD as suggested by Gerhard above (good one dude!) which is indeed simple to use, but much slower than VirtualBox (especially on my 1700Mhz single processor) and not configurable.
Reckon I\’ll stick with VirtualBox and skip Microsoft\’s offering (once bitten etc.).
I could not work out how to remove the .iso context menu commands after I had finished with MobaLiveCD, so wrote the following registry merge file… to use it yourself, copy and paste with any test editor/word processor in *plain* test to a .reg file, then r-click on it and select Merge. Should be 3 lines of text only, so remove any extra new lines inserted on this webpage.
REGEDIT4
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Classes\\iso_auto_file\\shell\\Emuler avec BuibuiLiveCD]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Classes\\iso_auto_file\\shell\\Test this with MobaLiveCD]
Erwin Ried
Can you tell us how to use Alcohol to boot a Live CD??
you can mount a CD but I didn’t see how to boot!
@ Raymond
I found out that it is better to have the base memory setting higher than the recommended 64MB.
With 64MB I could not load Slax or UBCD4Win as they got stuck before fully loading the OS. After changing to 128MB it loads fine. (now I set to 512MB, it seems the VB will take what it needs on demand?)
When I load Slax in base memory of 512MB and 32MB video, I see in Windows XP task manager that there are 2 instances of VB and VBoxSVC and VCDDaemon with total about 61MB.
I still cannot get the network to work. I get IP 10.0.2.15 with gateway 10.0.2.2.
And for Slax, I get message to change the color to 32 bits on the guest OS, but I did not see such configuration in VB.
Thanks but I think I will agree with aks :
alternatively …you could use microsoft virtual pc or vmware workstation
- They are more than enough
wow..great tools!
Thank you, Gerhard Hofmann, for your excellent suggestion. It is simpler a simpler alternative to VirtualBox.
It seems Virtual box is built from QEMU project.
I never tried myself QEMU and used sometime the old Microsoft Virtual PC.
Now I may try VB.
good information :)
wowwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Very very Thanks Raymond.
it is great post.
@Raymond:
Yes, Daemon tools and Alcohol 120 works to boot up live iso images.
My warn about VirtualBox is the performance vs a commercial product like VMWare Workstation.
I know that Daemon tools and Alcohol 120 can mount ISO images but can it be used to boot up live ISO images?
Umm u can also use Daemon tools, Alcohol 120, and many more other programs….
Hi Raymond,
an alternative would be MobaLiveCD, it’s a single EXE, even no need to install it:
mobalivecd.mobatek.net/en/
BTW: your blog is excellent!
Regards
Gerhard
raymond do u have any demonoid accounts?
now the registrations are closed
alternatively …you could use microsoft virtual pc or vmware workstation
Slax live CD works fine with vbox – i’ve used it.
All linux distros run fine on it.
Isn’t VirtualBox similar to VMWare and Microsoft’s Virtual PC?
The reason why I’m curious is because I hear so much about VMWare and Microsoft’s Virtual PC, but I’ve never heard them use VirtualBox in the same breath as the two above.
Alas – my favorite VM.
Thank You very very much Raymond for writing an article on this.
need to learn it… :)
Nice utility Raymond :D
Thanks