What to do with an ISO download

June 7, 2008

I began downloading a .ISO file, but I stopped it. I know this is a

CD image file, but I do not burn CDs. I do not use CDs at all except

those that come from a factory with data on them. I would not have

the faintest idea how to even begin to burn a CD, and in all honesty,

I do not care to learn how. CDs make good drink coasters and thats

about all they are good for.

I'm old, I use my computer to go online and edit my digital photos,

and do some basic home office stuff. That's all. I'll leave the

burning CDs to the young people who waste their entire lives in front

of a computer screen. I have an actual life, and the computer is less

than one percent of my time and life. I still remember seeing one guy

attempt to burn a CD. That young man was supposed to be a top knotch

computer expert. He told me he would back up my harddrive onto a CD,

so I could upgrade to a newer operating system. (From windows 3.1 to

Windows 95). I watched him spend hour after hour wasteing blank CDs.

For everyone that actually worked, at least 5 went into the garbage.

He was cussing and throwing things, and looked miserable. Fourteen

hours later he finally burned all of my data onto 3 CDs, and charged

me for 20 of them including all those he wasted. Then when I got

home, they would not read on my CD player drive. They only would read

on his drive and no one elses.

That lesson taught me to NEVER, EVER attempt to burn a CD, trust home

burned CDs as backups, or anything else. I never even had the urge to

cope with home burned CDs in the 11 or 12 years since I experienced

that nightmare. CDs in general are irritating, slow, noisy and I

avoid them as much as I can. I only plug in my CD drive when I

absolutely must get some drivers or something off of one of them. I

keep my Win98se install files on my harddrive. Otherwise the cable is

removed from the CD drive.

Anyhow, I do not use CDs, but I store all my data on portable

harddrives or flash sticks, and sometimes I still use floppy disks.

My question is how can I extract all the individual files inside a ISO

file on to a harddrive or a flash stick? Or can this not be done?

James

June 7, 2008

Re: What to do with an ISO download

<jamest1938@invalid.com> wrote in message

news:mvmk445pp3se8uina57vqkmv1c42s9elm8@4ax.com

<....>

> My question is how can I extract all the individual files inside a ISO

> file on to a harddrive or a flash stick? Or can this not be done?

That's very easy really (maybe not for your expressed mood though) <g>

....use any program like WinRar, WinZip. WinAce or any of your favorite

compression programs and extract it; any dedicated ISO program will

extract it as well.

ISO's are important in what they do for the all reasons they do it.

Your rant was really off base and limited, untrue actually, especially in

the human nature part.

Rick

>

> James

June 7, 2008

Re: What to do with an ISO download

Download the ISO image to the hard drive and then use a virtual CD utility

to access it as if it were a physical CD inserted in a CD drive. See, for

instance:

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-history.htm

Be sure to use the Tutorials link from that page to see how to do it.

There are many other products that do the same thing. Search on Virtual CD

ISO or similar.

--

Jeff Richards

MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

<jamest1938@invalid.com> wrote in message

news:mvmk445pp3se8uina57vqkmv1c42s9elm8@4ax.com...

>I began downloading a .ISO file, but I stopped it. I know this is a

> CD image file, but I do not burn CDs. I do not use CDs at all except

> those that come from a factory with data on them. I would not have

> the faintest idea how to even begin to burn a CD, and in all honesty,

> I do not care to learn how. CDs make good drink coasters and thats

> about all they are good for.

>

> I'm old, I use my computer to go online and edit my digital photos,

> and do some basic home office stuff. That's all. I'll leave the

> burning CDs to the young people who waste their entire lives in front

> of a computer screen. I have an actual life, and the computer is less

> than one percent of my time and life. I still remember seeing one guy

> attempt to burn a CD. That young man was supposed to be a top knotch

> computer expert. He told me he would back up my harddrive onto a CD,

> so I could upgrade to a newer operating system. (From windows 3.1 to

> Windows 95). I watched him spend hour after hour wasteing blank CDs.

> For everyone that actually worked, at least 5 went into the garbage.

> He was cussing and throwing things, and looked miserable. Fourteen

> hours later he finally burned all of my data onto 3 CDs, and charged

> me for 20 of them including all those he wasted. Then when I got

> home, they would not read on my CD player drive. They only would read

> on his drive and no one elses.

>

> That lesson taught me to NEVER, EVER attempt to burn a CD, trust home

> burned CDs as backups, or anything else. I never even had the urge to

> cope with home burned CDs in the 11 or 12 years since I experienced

> that nightmare. CDs in general are irritating, slow, noisy and I

> avoid them as much as I can. I only plug in my CD drive when I

> absolutely must get some drivers or something off of one of them. I

> keep my Win98se install files on my harddrive. Otherwise the cable is

> removed from the CD drive.

>

> Anyhow, I do not use CDs, but I store all my data on portable

> harddrives or flash sticks, and sometimes I still use floppy disks.

>

> My question is how can I extract all the individual files inside a ISO

> file on to a harddrive or a flash stick? Or can this not be done?

>

> James

June 7, 2008

Re: What to do with an ISO download

Magic Disk and Power ISO are two of many programs that can read ISO files

and extract files from them.

Magic Disk can also install/run some programs from ISO files.

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm

http://www.poweriso.com/

Magic Disk is free, but Power ISO is not. However, Power ISO can display an

ISO file in a windows-explorer-like interface. In contrast, Magic Disk

"mounts" the ISO files in a "virtual CD drive", which it creates, then you

access it via Windows Explorer, as if you had added a new CD drive to the

PC.

As for the problems you recall wriitng CDs, that was true some years ago,

and I agree it was an art, and you needed some luck. Today, even with

win98, a program like Nero or Easy CD Creator can very reliably write CDs.

I have a friend, retired and just past 65, who has no trouble writing good

CDs with win98. I have another, past 70, who writes both CDs and DVDs

(movies of his grand kids) using XP. Neither is a computer geek. On the

other end of the age spectrum, I have seen kids under 10 write music CDs.

With modern software it is really that easy.

As for why you should bother to learn? Ask yourself whether there are any

important personal files on your PC. For example, pictures, recipts,

emails, etc. If yes, then ask how are you backing them up? Or, what would

you do if (more likely when) the hard disk crashes? If you can not provide

a good answer to yourself, then check with your local school or library.

Perhaps they offer a course in PCs that covers how to write CDs and even

DVDs.