Mounting a windows 10 iso disk image. Features of creating virtual disks, their use. Opening the image file with archiving programs

This is a very common format. In the form of ISO files that are CD images or DVD disc, games or other programs are usually downloaded. Fortunately, Windows 10 has built-in tools for working with such objects. Let's take a closer look at what tools you can use to easily open a file with this extension or mount a separate virtual disk.

As already mentioned, any version Microsoft Windows 10 (be it Insider Preview or any other) is capable of opening ISO files on its own.

At the same time, the OS also creates a virtual drive, which can be removed by right-clicking and selecting “Eject”.

The choice of a third-party ISO opening tool directly depends on its content: if any game or application is provided in this form, then the correct decision would be not to open the file itself, but to mount the image. Before starting the procedure, make sure that the file is on an NTFS volume.

In other words, the ISO will open in specialized program which will create a separate virtual disk. Through such a drive it will be possible to install a utility or game. Let's figure out what programs can be used to do this.

Daemon Tools Lite

This is the most common and popular tool for mounting an ISO image. You can download the utility from, because in Lite versions it's absolutely free. The provided functionality will be more than enough.

This utility is installed in the same way as any other. Need to open EXE file and follow the instructions. There is only one “BUT” - in the Windows security window that opens, you must activate the “Always trust Disk Soft Ltd software” option. To install, all you have to do is click on the appropriate button.

Before finally launching the program, be sure to check that there is a checkmark in the “ISO” item so that the ISO format is automatically opened through this utility.

The further sequence of actions for opening an ISO using DTL is as follows:

Find the downloaded ISO and launch it standard method. Due to the fact that it was associated with the program we are describing, the file will be read in it.

Activate the option “Always use this application to open .iso” and click “OK”.

Click "Open" in the Microsoft Security Alert window.

If the procedure was completed successfully, a new disk will appear at the bottom of the program window.

We open “This PC” and in Explorer we see in the list of hard drives a new drive with the program that we downloaded as an ISO.

The disk is available for opening and use. When you double click on it it will start automatic installation content. Right-clicking on the disk and selecting “Open” will open the contents for further use.

To unmount a drive, you need to open the application, select the appropriate drive, right-click on it and click on the “Unmount” button.

As a result, the disk will be removed from the explorer.

Let's move on to consider the next tool with similar functionality.

Ultra ISO

Ultra ISO – the simplest tool for working with ISO, not taking up a lot of space disk space, but providing a huge number of possibilities. Only one of them interests us.

A program window will open, displaying the entire contents of the selected file.

To get the necessary files at your disposal, select them, right-click, click on “Extract to...” and indicate the extraction path.

The files are extracted to the desired folder and are ready for use. None additional drives was not mounted.

As you can see, working in this utility does not take much time. Let's move on to the next tool.

Alcohol 120%

Alcohol is most powerful utility for recording discs. In addition, it allows you to connect a large number of virtual drives. Its functionality is truly impressive, but in our case we will only work with a smaller part of it.

Find the required ISO.

Right-click on the added image in the application and click on “Mount to device”.

If everything went well, the image data will be displayed in the virtual media status.

Go to “This Computer” and check for the presence of a virtual disk. If successful, open it and use the necessary data.

To get rid of the image, go to the utility, right-click on the virtual drive and select the line “Dismount image”. The image will be dismounted, and the virtual drive will be removed and removed from the list of connected hard drives.

Let's move on to consider the last tool in this category.

Nero

Nero is a whole package of utilities containing all the necessary tools for working with multimedia. The projects themselves have the NRG extension. Unfortunately, the package no longer includes a utility that supports ISO - Nero Image Drive, however, the previous solutions should be more than enough to solve emerging problems.

All described emulators are provided in Russian, so the user will not have questions about how to translate the interface.

Opening by archivers

Any ISO can be opened not only using specialized applications that mount images, or the OS itself, but also using modern archivers. This method It is recommended to use it only if you only need data from the ISO and there is no need to create a disk image.

Let's look at the two most common archivers and the process of working with ISOs using them.

WinRAR

WinRAR is the most common archiver today. The program is extremely easy to use and has the most intuitive interface.

Let's consider an alternative archiver, no less common among PC users.

7-zip

7-zip is an absolutely free archiver, in no way inferior to the previously described WinRAR. Download the utility from and install it on your computer or laptop.

Pay attention to which OS version is installed - x32 Bit or x64 Bit. Based on this information, you need to download and run the appropriate version of 7-zip.

To expand ISO via 7-zip:

Right-click on the file, hover the cursor over “7-zip” and in the expanded add-on, click on “Unpack”.

Select the extraction path and click OK. The files will be unpacked into the folder specified by the user, nothing else needs to be done.

Select the existing files and click on the “Extract” button. We indicate the appropriate path and click on “OK”.

That's all, actually. We have finished looking at how to open an ISO file on Windows 10 in just a few clicks.

Conclusions

Choice specific solution depends on the situation. If a game or program requires a disk, then you should use one of the emulators and create a special virtual media. If you just need to access files stored in ISO, you can do without programs and use any available archiver.

Video instructions

We attach detailed instructions in video format, which describes step by step the process of working with each tool described above.

One of the great features of Windows 10 is the native ability to mount ISO and IMG files in File Explorer by double-clicking the mouse. The operating system creates a virtual drive that mounts the contents of the disk image file and makes it accessible, just like if you inserted a physical drive into an optical drive drive.

Ability to mount ISO files in File Explorer was first introduced in Windows 8. It was one of the best improvements the operating system received.

ISO and IMG files are special formats files on disk that can store captured content optical disk or removable disk. The disk image file is an exact copy of the contents of some DVD media or CD. You can also make an ISO image file manually from any files you have on any drive, or convert an ESD Image to ISO.

Mount ISO and IMG files in Windows 10, open File Explorer and navigate to the folder where your ISO file is stored.

Double-click the file or right-click it and select "Mount" from context menu. This is the default context menu command.

The disk image will be mounted on a virtual disk in this PC folder. See screenshot.

Sometimes the file association for ISO or IMG files can be transferred third party application. For example, my favorite archiver, 7-Zip, can open ISO files. In this case, the ISO file is associated with 7-Zip if you installed it by default from Control Panel. When double-clicked, the ISO file will open in the appropriate application.

In this case, you can restore default file associations or mount the file from the context menu.

Right-click the ISO file and select Open With - Windows Explorer. See the following screenshot:

Additionally, you can restore the default file association. Do it this way.

Note: Windows 10 allows the user to mount ISO and IMG files that are stored in the NTFS partition on the device connected to your PC. Other file systems and locations are not supported. For example, if you are trying to mount an ISO file from a shared network resource, it shows the following message:

[Window name]
Failed to install file

Alternatively, Windows 10 allows mount ISO and IMG files using PowerShell.

Open PowerShell and enter the following command:

Mount-DiskImage -ImagePath<Полный путь к вашему файлу ISO>

You can copy the file path and paste it into the PowerShell console. See screenshot below.

Once you are done working inside the mounted ISO image, you can unmount it.

In File Explorer, open This PC and select Eject from the virtual drive's context menu.

Alternatively, in PowerShell, use the Dismount-DiskImage cmdlet like this:

Dismount-DiskImage -ImagePath<Полный путь к вашему файлу ISO>

See the following screenshot.

When asked by a user how to mount a disk image in the latest edition of the operating system Windows systems at number ten, there is a simple answer.

To do this it is enough to use functional feature the system itself, which automatically eliminates the need to download and install third-party programs on your computer.

Everyone knows that disk images of the most common formats ISO, VCD (VirtualCD), IMG and MDS/MDF (DAEMON Tools, Alcohol 120%), mostly downloaded by users from the Internet, are made exact copies the entire contents of optical or removable disks. Also, any files of their owner (training courses, games, collections of programs, installation disks OS, etc.).

The function of mounting ISO/IMG images in Explorer was first implemented in the eighth version of the operating system. And this has become one of the best, useful and relevant innovations operating system. Of course, to obtain more advanced capabilities for working with disk image files, the user cannot do without an additional program installed on the computer.

Next command:

Dismount-DiskImage -ImagePath "Full file path"

will remove it safely from the drive.

There are times when, after installing the WinRAR archiver, image files are automatically associated with this program and, instead of “Connections,” are opened as archives. To eliminate this behavior, go to the archiver settings and uncheck “Associate WinRAR with”, or in the operating system settings, assign the default program to open this type of file.

Let's put an end to the instructions here! Still have questions? Ask in the comments.

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A lot of users personal computers on Windows platform people often ask questions - what are virtual disks and how to create virtual disk. To increase the awareness of our readers on these issues, in this article we will try to fully cover the topic using specific examples.

Also in our article we will look at what is virtual hard drives and where they are used. After reading the material, our readers will be able to create virtual hard disks and image disks without any problems. ISO format, and also install them on virtual device and burn to DVD.

Virtual optical drive and its applications

The main purpose of a virtual disk drive is mounting images optical disks. To understand in detail why it is needed, we will look at an example where an image of a disk in ISO format will be mounted on a virtual DVD-ROM. For this example, we will use the Windows 10 operating system.

A nice thing for owners of computers with the Windows 10 operating system is that it already has a virtual DVD-ROM installed. Therefore, Windows 10 owners will not have to use third party programs for mounting images.

To mount an optical disk image into a virtual DVD-ROM, we need the image itself. For example, we will use image with operating Linux system Ubuntu. You can download the image of this operating system on its official website http://www.ubuntu.com. In our example we will use the image 64-bit Ubuntu version 15.10, which has a size of 1.1 GB.

Having downloaded the image, you can begin to mount it directly. To do this, right-click on the image file to open the context menu.

The mounted “virtual disk” can be opened and all its contents copied.

As you can see from the example, we mounted an image from the Ubuntu OS on a virtual DVD drive. Essentially, we were able to do almost what we do with a regular and optical disc when we insert it into a DVD drive and open it, only in our version all the components are virtual.

Creating a laserdisc image

In the previous example, we looked at how to open an image disk in a virtual DVD drive. Now let's deal with the situation when you need to create an image of an optical disk. To create an image, we will need the DAEMON Tools Lite program, which must be downloaded and installed. It is also worth noting that in addition to creating different image formats, DAEMON Tools Lite can also mount a huge number of formats into its own virtual DVD drive. After installing the program DAEMON Tools Lite In Explorer you will notice a new drive named ""

This “” is precisely the drive of the program in question DAEMON Tools Lite. In this example, we will create an image of the original installation DVD with the Windows 10 operating system. To make an image from the installation DVD with ten, insert it into the DVD drive. Now let’s run the utility and go to the “ New look».

In the utility window we find the button “ Create an image from disk" and press it. These actions will take us to the image creation window.

In this window, you can select the DVD drive from which the ISO image will be created, and also select the location to save it.

We will also select the image ISO format and confirm the creation by clicking the Start button, which will start creating a DVD image with Windows 10.

After creation, we will receive an ISO image file named “J_CCSA_X86FRE_RU-RU_DV5.iso”, which can be mounted or written to a regular disc and installed a new Windows using it.

The example shows how easy it is to burn an image for a virtual DVD-ROM using DAEMON Tools Lite. In the same way, you can record images for all licensed Windows drives, be it XP or Vista. In addition, you can record images of games or software that will not run without a disc. In addition to the program DAEMON Tools Lite I would like to recommend other popular utilities that can create and allow you to open images of optical disks:

Alcohol 120%;
Gizmo Drive;
WinCDEmu.

It is especially important to use these utilities on an OS that does not have built-in virtual DVD drives, for example, in OS Windows XP. In addition to XP support, each of these programs, including DAEMON Tools Lite, will be able to write ISO images on DVD disk. In addition to supporting the ISO format, these utilities can mount other formats, including their own, which can be written to regular discs.

Virtual hard disk

Virtual hard drive quite often used by IT specialists, as it allows you to solve many problems with backup, virtual machines and testing of various operating systems. Virtual hard disk is a container file that simulates file structure hard drive .

Since such a disk is a file, it is therefore usually stored on a physical HDD or SSD. Starting with Windows 7, users now have the ability to create and mount a hard disk directly in the operating system.

Let's look at an example of creating a virtual hard disk using Windows 10. First, let's go to the " Execute"using the key combination Win + R and type the following command in it: diskmgmt.msc

This command will take us to the Disk Control Panel.

To create a new virtual HDD, you need to go to the " Action / Create virtual hard disk", which will open a window to create such a disk.

Starting with Windows 10, it became possible to create a disk with the format " VHDX" Unlike the "VHD" format, the " VHDX» can create containers up to 64 terabytes. Let's make our 100 GB virtual hard disk in the new format " VHDX", and also set the switch to dynamic creation mode, in which our disk will grow as it fills.

After setting the parameters of our hard drive, press the OK button, which will allow you to write it to the specified folder on the screw. Once created, the output will be a virtual hard disk named “virtual disk.vhdx”. From the image below you can see that our disk was automatically mounted, but it is still not visible in the system.

For the system to see our VHDX disk, it must be initialized. This can be done by right-clicking on the VHDX disk and selecting “ Initialize disk».

In the window that appears, do not change anything and click OK.

Now the simplest thing left is to choose for our disk file system and a letter. To do this, go to it and select the item “ Create a simple volume».

After this, a wizard will launch in which you need to assign a drive letter and select a file system. After completing the wizard, the virtual hard disk will appear in Explorer.

From the example it is clear that creating a virtual HDD using OS tools is very simple, so we hope that you will no longer have the question of how to create a virtual hard disk. I would also like to note that with the created VHDX disk you can do the following operations:

Encrypt it using BitLocker;
Install an additional OS on it;
Move and open it on another computer;
Connect it to a virtual machine.

Computers based on the Windows XP operating system, which is still quite popular, do not support VHD drives. But don’t be upset, because in the utility we reviewed earlier DAEMON Tools Lite there is support for VHD disks and it Fully compatible with Windows XP.

Using a VHD disk in a virtual machine

Let's create it using VirtualBox virtual machine based on the Windows XP operating system. At the stage virtual creation machine for XP will be prompted to create or attach a virtual hard disk that will be used for Windows installations XP on it.

At this point we can attach the VHD disk that we will create with using Windows 10. Therefore, we will try to attach our 30 GB VHD container, which we made in the top ten. After creating the virtual machine, you can view the attached VHD disk in its settings.

If there is little space in the virtual machine on XP, you can always attach new VHD virtual hard disk. Besides this, you can connect containers with various file data to the virtual machine for XP. In the same way you can use virtual machines from others software products. For example, VHD containers can be installed on VMware Workstation products.

Bottom line

From the material reviewed it is clear that the use of virtual drives and hard drives It helps solve many problems much better, especially since even a novice PC user can figure out how to create them. We hope that our material will help our readers better understand the question of how to create a virtual disk and how to use it for work.

Video on the topic

A disk image is a virtual file - a copy containing all the information from any physical medium. There is no way to do without a program for mounting disk images if the computer has content presented in the format of a virtual clone of a CD/DVD disk. Below we will look at five ways to mount a disk image in Windows so that its contents are available in a virtual drive.

How to make a disk image using standard Windows tools

First, let's look at the standard functionality for mounting CD/DVD images in Windows 8.1.

Creation time Windows versions 8, from which the standard functionality for working with disk images migrated to all successor versions - Windows 8.1 and 10 - was due to the massive phenomenon of manufacturer failures computer devices from the configuration of their drives. CD/DVD disks were becoming obsolete, and the lack of a drive reduced the final cost of individual laptop models and PC assemblies. Microsoft, in fact, had no choice but to implement the standard ability to connect disk images, at least only in the popular ISO format, so as not to take bread away from third-party software developers. So, if in the version of Windows 7 mounting disk images is only possible using third-party software, then users will be able to view the contents of the disk itself in ISO format using the system.

So how do you mount an ISO disk image in Windows 8.x and Windows 10? In Explorer, select the ISO file, call the context menu and select the “Connect” command.

That’s it – the image is mounted and visible in the virtual drive. You can start viewing its contents in System Explorer.

Programs for creating a disk image

Mounting images in Deamon Tools

Deamon Tools is the market leader software to create a disk image. The first version of Deamon Tools appeared in 2000, and, despite the fact that its analogues were released onto the software market earlier, it immediately quickly gained popularity due to its friendly user interface and the free Lite edition, which was more than enough for non-professional home use. Daemon Tools Works with almost all disk image formats. The program's operation is invisible even for low-power devices, since it uses a minimum of system resources. The free Lite version contains limitations - in particular, it is the ability to simultaneously mount only 4 virtual drives. Whereas in paid Pro version Advanced 32 drives can be mounted on the computer.

Relatively recently, Daemon Tools has changed dramatically, and the classic interface has been replaced by dullness and wretchedness, but with an extremely clear description of functions and a clear internal organization of sections. The functionality of the program has been expanded, but not everything is available in the Lite version. Naked demonstration of individual functions without the possibility of using them is a marketing ploy to encourage users to purchase the paid version.

Daemon Tools Lite 10 is available for free download on the developer's website.

Important point during installation - select an option free license.

Among the innovations in the Daemon Tools version is the option to scan your computer to detect disk images and display them in the internal library. Well, let's take advantage of this opportunity.

After scanning, all possible virtual CD/DVD and hard drives will be visible in the program window. Select the desired type, open the context menu and execute the “Mount” command.

As before, disk images can be added to the Daemon Tools interface one at a time using the quick mount button.

To unmount a virtual drive, call the context menu on its connection icon at the bottom of the program window and select the appropriate command.

How to mount an image using UltraISO

UltraISO is a mega-program designed for professional use. Among its capabilities are the following: creating images of CD/DVD discs, burning them to discs and editing without unpacking, optimizing the structure to save space, converting from one format to another, etc. This program is also a reliable and proven tool for creating bootable flash drives.

UltraISO is a paid software product. The free trial version is of little use when it comes to full use most of the possibilities. Thus, the trial version has limitations due to which it will not be possible to create or burn an ISO file whose weight is more than 300 MB. In our case, when we are talking purely about mounting a disk image into a virtual drive, this limitation does not apply. Therefore, you can safely download the trial version with a Russian-language interface from the UltraISO developer website.

After launching UltraISO, you will see a small window telling us about the limitations of the trial version and encouraging us to purchase the paid version. Click the button " Trial period».

In the program window, open the “File” menu and click the “Open” button.

Add the image file.

Expand the “Tools” menu and select “Mount to virtual drive” among the available commands.

A small window will appear where you need to select the mount button. The button next to it - “Unmount” - must be used, respectively, to extract the CD/DVD disk image from the virtual drive.

How to burn an image to disk in Alcohol 52%

Alcohol 52% Free Edition is a free, stripped-down version of the well-known CD/DVD emulation program Alcohol 120%. Unlike the latter, the paid Alcohol 52% allows you to mount a limited number of virtual drives at the same time - up to 6 pieces. In the free version of Alcohol 52% Free Edition, this number is completely reduced to a minimum - only 2 parallel virtual drives. Also free version does not provide for recording discs onto blanks.

A free trial version of the utility can be downloaded from the link from the developer’s official website.

At the time of writing this article, it was not possible to download the program installer using the browser downloader, but the problem was successfully resolved with the help of the manager Download Master.

There are no limits to the tricks of developers who want paid versions of software products to be purchased from them. In the case of the trial version of Alcohol 52%, we will not just look at the demo window with an offer to buy full version program, but you will even have to wait a few seconds until the “OK” program launch button becomes active.

In the Alcohol 52% program window, expand the “File” menu and select “Open”.

Add the required file to the program window, open the context menu on it and select the “Mount to device” command.

To extract the image from the virtual drive, open the context menu again and select the “Dismount...” command accordingly.

The fastest way to mount and unmount a virtual drive

The methods for working with virtual drives within programs are discussed above. But there is also a more convenient one, more quick way mount and unmount the virtual drive. If Daemon Tools Lite is installed with a program that opens ISO files by default, you can mount the drive by opening the image as regular file double click the mouse from the system explorer. In the case of the program UltraISO image disk will be instantly added to the program window for carrying out further actions. But Alcohol 52% will simply open, as with a normal launch, however, it is also convenient.

If the default program was not assigned during installation, this can be done manually at any time. To designate a program that opens a particular type of ISO file by default, find any of them in Windows Explorer and select “Properties” from the context menu.

Click the change application button.

If the desired program not in the list, select "Advanced", scroll down to the end of the list and click the option to search for another application.

Specify the program launch file in the installation folder.

Apply the changes.

Now in the system explorer the CD/DVD image file will be displayed as the program icon by default and will open in this program when launched.

The easiest way to unmount a virtual drive is in System Explorer. Among the commands in the context menu called on the mounted drive, there is a function to eject the disk.

After this, the virtual drive will disappear.

Have a great day!