Creating a boot disk. How to create an ISO image from files (bootable)

In the previous article, I discussed the issue of installing Windows 7. Several points were raised about where to get the Windows 7 distribution. One of the options involved downloading an operating system image from the Internet. In this article, I will tell you in more detail how to burn a downloaded image to a DVD using various applications. Along the way, we’ll touch on some of the nuances of recording for Windows 10.

To create a boot disk with the Windows 7 or 8 or 10 operating system, we need a DVD-R or DVD-RW disk, a windows image and a computer or laptop with a burner drive. Previously, we looked at recording an image using the program BurnAware Free. You can get acquainted.

To begin with, we will describe the general recording rules, which will not differ for almost any recording program. These rules are typical for writing not only windows images, but also for writing any data to DVD, CD or BR disks:

To burn a Windows image, try not to skimp on the DVD. Let it not be a top-priced blank, but also not a disk at the lowest cost. A high-quality disk will allow you to install the operating system many times, of course, with proper storage of the disk.
The disc writing speed should be the minimum for your drive and for the specific DVD disc. The lower the write speed, the higher the probability of recording without failures.
During recording, it is advisable to equip the computer with an uninterruptible power supply - a UPS, in order to minimize the risk of damaging the disc during power surges or power outages.

The most common user mistake is writing an image file to disk as a regular data file. Such a disk is not bootable and you will not be able to install the Windows 7 operating system from it. The principle of burning an image to a disk implies “unpacking the system installation files onto an empty DVD media.”

ISO and UltraISO image

This application is very popular not only for burning discs, but also for burning boot images onto flash drives. In addition, UltraISO has the ability to create a virtual drive into which you can mount a disk image. We'll talk about all the features of this program another time. Stay tuned.

The first launch after installing the program is accompanied by an information window disclaiming warranties. Agree by clicking the button Everything is fine.

CloneCD first launch

Next, CloneCD notifies you that it is not free and you have 21 days to get acquainted with it. Well, we don't need any more. We close the message and the main program window appears in front of us, in which we select the second button from the left CD recording.

Selecting an image entry

Selecting an image file

Information about the image file

In the next step, select the recording speed and press OK.

Selecting the recording speed

After finishing recording, you can proceed to installing the operating system.

Image MDF/MDS and Alcohol 120%

Another equally popular program for recording images Alcohol 120%. As in the case of UltraISO, it can do a lot, but its main advantage is working with images like MDF/MDS.

After finishing recording, we go to install the operating system on the computer.

NRG image and Nero Burning ROM

Perhaps the most famous among the programs presented is the Nero Burning ROM program. Download it from the official website of the developers and install it.

The first launch, as in the case of any trial program, is accompanied by familiarization with information about purchasing the program or launching a trial version. Choose Continue.

Nero Burning ROM - first launch

Cancellation - new project

The next step is to go to the menu and select Recorder - Record image...

Burn image

Next, in the standard Windows dialog box, select our file with the operating system image and click Open. Then in the next window set the Recording Speed, Recording Method and press the button Burning.

Recording a project

After pressing the button Burning The process of burning the Windows image to disk will begin.

MediaCreationTool for Windows 10

There is a simple option to burn a Windows 10 image to disk. To do this, you need to download the utility from microsoft.com and use it. Follow the link, download and run. In the first window, accept the licensing terms and proceed to the first step of the wizard, selecting the second option and clicking Further.

Create installation media for another computer

Next, you are offered a choice of language, architecture and release, which can be changed by clicking the checkbox Use recommended settings for this computer. This means that the image will be recorded in accordance with the capabilities of the computer on which the utility was launched. If you need to change these parameters, then uncheck the box and change it at your discretion.

Selecting system parameters

In the next step, in the standard Windows dialog box, indicate the path where the utility will download the image file of the Windows 10 operating system from the Internet and click Further. The download process begins, which, depending on the speed of your Internet connection, can take from 5 minutes to 2 or 3 hours. Immediately after this, the creation of Windows 10 media will begin, which also takes a long time. Be patient.

Download and create Windows 10 media

When you've finished burning the Windows 10 image, all you have to do is insert the blank into the DVD burner and press Open DVD Burner.

Completing the Windows 10 image preparation

Burning windows to disk using a standard tool

Since the release of Windows 7, users have been offered the ability to burn an ISO image, including an image of the Windows operating system, to a disc without using third-party programs. To do this, in the Windows 7, 8, 10 operating system, right-click on the ISO image file with the Windows distribution and select Burn disk image.

Selecting an image file

Burning an image

After the burning process is completed, you will receive a Windows 10 boot disk ready to use.

In one of my old articles, I told you how to make a multiboot flash drive. And although this article is about how to recover a forgotten password for logging into Windows (you can read the article), only one action aroused interest among many - “multi-boot”. What is this?

This is the automatic loading of a program located on external media, a flash drive or disk, when it is “inserted” into a USB port or drive, respectively. I'll explain with a simple example - a Windows installation disk. When you insert it into the drive, you don’t need to launch anything; some beautiful window immediately pops up on the screen, where it says something like, “Proceed with installing Windows.” I think you must have encountered this, so I won’t dwell on it too much.

Well, I already told you how to make a bootable USB flash drive, the link to that article is at the beginning. A how to make a boot disk?

Before I begin to describe the process itself, I want to notify you. I will make a boot disk from iso file. This is an image. Having an image saves us from various problems. Which ones? Well, for example, the most problematic is where to find the file that will make the disk bootable, or how to make it. If you do not have an iso file of the program you want make the disk bootable, then find it. Fortunately, the Internet is full of this stuff now. There are two lessons on the site that talk about services for searching and downloading files, here are links to them - and.

Well, for those who have an image and for those who came from the article about ERD, let’s begin the process.

How to make a boot disk or multiboot disk?

We will make a boot disk using one wonderful, free and very easy-to-use program - Astroburn Lite. You can download it. Just click on the big green button in the right column, “Download”.

After you download and install it, you can start.

To start insert a blank disc. Well, you can insert a “dirty” one, it will still be cleared before recording (if it’s a CD-RW or DVD-RW, then you can insert “dirty” ones, but CD-R or DVD-R, only clean ones). If the image weighs less than 700 megabytes, use CDs, and if larger, then use DVDs.

A window like this will open in front of you.

To begin, go to the “Image” tab, underlined in red. Then select the file with the iso image to open a selection window, click on the button underlined in blue. After that, if you have several drives, make sure that you have selected the one in which the disk to be written is located, the selection button is highlighted in green. Then click “Start Recording”. A window like this will pop up on your screen.

Click Yes.

After which you will see the process of disk cleaning, and then recording.

When finished, a window like this will appear.

Click OK. All.

You can check it very simply. After recording, remove and immediately insert the disc back into the drive. And if you have it will start automatically or a window like “Run autorun” will appear. So you did everything right. I tried it on two different programs and it worked.

Happy recording.

P.S. By the way, for readers who came from the article password recovery. I checked SPECIALLY, everything that I described above, on the same image - everything works.

CDs are increasingly being replaced by flash drives and other storage devices, but they are still in use. Therefore, it is very important to know how to use them. In this material we will talk about how to burn an image to disk using UltraIso.

Step No. 1. Open the disk image using the UltraIso program.

If you want to burn the image to disk via, then the first thing you need to do is run UltraIso and open the disk image. To do this, click on the “Open” button, which is located on the toolbar.

You can also use the “File – Open” menu.

After this, a standard window for selecting files will appear. Here, simply select the disk image file you want to burn and click on the “Open” button.

As a result of the above steps, the contents of the disk image you selected should appear in the UltraIso program window.

Step #2: Start burning the image.

You can also start burning the image using the “Tools – Burn CD Image” menu or using the F7 key on your keyboard.

As a result, a window will appear for burning the image to disk. At this stage, you just need to insert the disc into the drive (if the disc is not already inserted) and click on the “Record” button.

If you have a disposable or empty disc, then recording will begin immediately. If you are using a rewritable disk and there is data on it, the program will first ask you to confirm wiping the disk. In order to continue here you need to click on the “Yes” button.

After this, the program will begin cleaning the disk, and after cleaning, writing the image to the disk will immediately begin.

Now all you have to do is wait until the UltraIso program writes the image to disk.

How to burn an image to a flash drive using UltraIso

It should be added that using the UltraIso program you can also use drives. To do this, you need to open the disk image in the UltraIso program (as described in step No. 1), and then open the menu “Boot - Burn Hard Disk Image”

As a result, a window will appear for writing images to flash drives. In this window, you need to select the flash drive that you want to use for recording and click on the “Record” button.

After this, the UltraIso program will warn you about deleting old data from the flash drive. In order to continue, you need to click on the “Yes” button.

After this, the process of writing the image to the flash drive will begin.

I warmly welcome everyone, dear friends! I went outside, there was slush and puddles. By the time I got to work, I almost fell on slippery places 9 times (I counted). It's almost February. Anyway. I won't whine. Today I would like to continue the topic of iso files. Are we with you? We learned. And this is important. But what do you do when you have a Windows disk image and need to reinstall it?

It will simply be difficult for you to reinstall the system if you simply insert the virtual disk into the same Daemon Tools (or any other emulator) or open the launch file. No, you can try, but they won’t let you mark up, format, or make changes to file systems. In general, if you install windows directly from your system, then it’s tough. I’ll tell you straight away - don’t do that!

To reinstall the system normally, you definitely need to make bootable media (disk or flash drive). So that you do not have any misunderstandings, I will tell you how to burn an iso image to disk. And I’ll tell you that you don’t need any programs.

Standard recording

But there is one caveat. If you have some kind of program for reading iso files, for example the same Daemon Tools, then by default files with this extension will be opened through it, which means you won’t get a window with the recording, and the image will be stupidly mounted into the virtual drive.

In order to properly write an image to disk, it is best for you to use Explorer. Well, then it’s a matter of technology. We repeat what I wrote above.

Recording using the Run line

Here it is, my favorite line. Thanks to it, we can also burn our image to disk. Well, this is true, rather for general development, because the recording methods are the same, but the methods for opening the recording tool are different.

But I would suggest that you play it safe and study very good video course on backup, thanks to which you can make a backup image of the system and constantly update it. You will learn to do everything correctly and avoid mistakes. Overall, be sure to check it out.

A boot disk or Live CD is a disk from which you can boot an operating system. Boot disks are used to solve computer problems or just for work.

There are many different bootable disks available online. Typically, such disks are distributed as disk images in ISO format. In order to turn an iso file into a real bootable disk, it must be burned onto a CD or DVD media. In this article we will talk about how to burn a bootable disc.

How to Burn a Bootable Disk Using ImgBurn

It's free. Its main advantage is a slightly ascetic and extremely simple interface. Understanding this program will not be difficult for even the most inexperienced user.

So, download and install the ImgBurn program. After launching the program for the first time, you will see something like this window.

In order to write our iso file to disk and get a boot disk, click on the “Write image file to disk” button.

After this, a disk image recording window will open in front of you. The first thing to do here is to specify the location of your iso file. To do this, click on the “Browse” button and select the desired iso file.

That's it, these simple steps are enough to start recording a boot disk. In order to start the recording process, you need to click on the “Write” button.

If necessary, before starting recording, you can select the drive that will be used for recording (useful if you have more than one drive in your computer), as well as select the recording speed and the number of copies of the disc. But, in most cases, these settings are not needed and you can immediately start recording a boot disk.

How to burn a bootable disc using CDBurnerXP

This is a disc burning program. Like ImgBurn, this program is distributed absolutely free. CDBurnerXP's advantage is its slick interface, a bit similar to Nero, a popular paid disc burning program.

After downloading, installing and launching the CDBurnerXP program for the first time, you will see this window.

This is the main window of the program, with its help you can launch all functions for working with disks. In our case, we need a function. Therefore, select the appropriate item and click on the “OK” button.

After this, a small window should open in front of you for burning boot disks. The interface of this window is as simple as possible. The first thing you need to do is specify the location of the ISO file that will be used to create the boot disk. To do this, click on the “Browse” button and select the desired file.

In principle, this is enough to start recording a boot disk. After you have selected the ISO file, you can click on the “Burn disc” button.

But if necessary, you can select an optical drive, select the writing speed, check the data after burning, or turn off the computer after the boot disk has finished burning. All these functions are available in the same window.

The OS installer media is useful. You never know at what point the system will refuse to work or a friend will urgently need to reinstall Windows, let alone a recovery disk that can bring a dying operating system back to life. Let's look at how to create and burn bootable (installation) media for different cases.

How to create a boot disk for Windows 7

To create a disk or flash drive to boot the system, you need to have with you what you will need directly during the work process:

the media itself (disk or flash drive);
utility for working with disk images;
disk image or Windows 7 system files to create it.

Nothing else is required from the user. To begin with, let's get acquainted with the first, preliminary part of creating a boot disk - building an ISO image for its subsequent recording to media.

Creating and Burning an ISO Disc Image

Creating a boot disk assumes that the user has an ISO image that will be burned to the media. A disk image is a file that is a complete copy of the entire contents of a software disk and is widely used in creating bootable disks and flash drives. If the image is not available, you can create it yourself without experiencing any problems: only for this... you will need an existing installation disk with Windows 7 or system installer files copied to a separate folder. If you have any of this, you can safely start creating an image for a new boot disk.

ISO is the most popular image format, and it is what most utilities for creating and burning images work with. You can also create a recording file using standard OS tools, but there is no data on the quality of such recording on systems younger than Windows 7. Therefore, it is recommended to use third-party programs in any case.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free

This is a free, lightweight utility for working with disks, characterized by ease of use and a laconic interface, as well as the absence of advertising and built-in malware programs. In it you can not only write files to a disk or flash drive, but also create an image in two ways to choose from: from physical media (CD or DVD, which is previously inserted into the drive) and from a folder with files located on the computer.

Working with this utility is very simple: an ISO image is created in just a few clicks.

You can download Ashampoo Burning Studio Free on the official website.

CDBurner XP

This program is also free, very easy to use and is considered one of the best utilities of its kind. It is adapted for older versions of Windows, but it also works great in new ones (unless the antediluvian interface confuses you). Just like the previous one, the program can create disk images from CDs, DVDs and user files, as well as burn them.

The utility is available for download on the manufacturer's website.

Ultra ISO

The most famous and widespread program that is usually used to create and burn discs is UltraISO. A wide range of functions makes this program a universal tool for creating and recording images, so it is recommended to use it. We'll come back to this program when we move on to burning a disc, but for now we'll look at creating an image in it.

UltraISO is not a free program, but on the official website you can download its trial version, which you can use for free for some time.

Video: creating an image in UltraISO

Creating an image manually

If you don’t want to tinker with programs (keep in mind, you’ll still have to when writing to an installation flash drive), then Windows has good news for you: you can create a disk image through the console using standard Windows tools. To do this, however, you still have to download utilities: this time official tools from Microsoft that work from the console.

However, there is nothing particularly difficult about this.

First you need to place the files to be written to disk in a separate folder and save it in a convenient location, for example, C:\Win7ISO. Why convenient? Because the shorter the path to the file, the easier it is to register it in the console.
Then you need to download from the Microsoft website a set of utilities that will be needed when creating the image. The utilities need to be unpacked and installed.
After installing the utilities, you need to open the command line as an administrator (press the Win + X key combination and select “Command Prompt (Administrator)” in the menu that opens) and enter the following code in it:
oscdimg -n -m -b»C:\Win7ISO\boot\ etfsboot.com» C:\Win7ISO C:\Win7ISO\Win7.iso

Dmitriy
remontka.pro

The console will begin creating the ISO image, and all you have to do is wait for the build to finish. After this, the newly created image will be available in the path you specified.

Burning an image to a disk or flash drive

When the boot image is created, all that remains is to move on to the most important thing - writing it to disk. This can be done both using Windows tools and through special programs, some of which have already been discussed above. Programs are a simpler and more popular option, but we will look at both methods.

Burning an image to UltraISO

We will show the software recording method using UltraISO as an example, since this program is the most convenient and popular among users. However, you can use any other utility for this: their general operating principle is similar.

Video: how to burn an image to UltraISO

Manual recording

This option is suitable for people who use new versions of Windows (7, 8, 8.1, 10): they have the best implementation of disc burning. In the case of a flash drive, everything is a little more complicated: the instructions will only work for computers with UEFI. If you don't have UEFI, you will have to use programs.

If the system being installed is Windows 7 x32, then this method will also not work.

Let's start by burning the disc. Everything here is extremely simple: you just need to right-click on the image and select the “Burn disk image” option. Of course, you first need to check that the disk is inserted into the drive and there is enough space on it to record the image.

To manually burn a disk image, just right-click on it and select the appropriate item

But with a flash drive everything is a little different. To record it, you will need a command line opened as administrator (how to do this is indicated above).

At the command line, enter the following commands in order:

diskpart
list disk
select disk N (here N is the disk number under which your flash drive is displayed)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
list volume

Ready! The flash drive is formatted as bootable, then you need to copy files to it. It's done like this.

Creating a multiboot disk

To create a multiboot disk (that is, a disk on which not one OS is installed, but several, and in addition more programs), you will need slightly different software.

The best choice today is the free program Sardu, which, in addition, also provides a choice of many images that it downloads itself.

The program interface is quite complex, so some explanations would be helpful.

In the main menu of the Sardu program, you can select images and write them either to a flash drive or to a disk

antiviruses;
utilities;
Linux distributions;
different versions of the Windows system;
other (allows you to upload your own images, but is only available in the paid Pro version).

On the right are the buttons used to record.

Creating a system repair installation disc

To create a system repair disk (this is the one with which Windows 7 can be restored if it fails), you need the disk itself - that's all.

Creating a recovery flash drive is somewhat more complicated.

In this case, you should create a system image (in the same window where the recovery disk is, there is the “Create a system image” item.
When the system collects and writes the image, you will need to write it to a flash drive using one of the methods discussed above. A little longer, but more convenient: a flash drive is more reliable than a disk. The only negative: the system image for recovery weighs quite a lot, so it is recommended to use a large flash drive or a removable hard drive.

Reliable media is a very important point in the “treatment” or installation of any system. Make sure to burn properly and don't neglect recovery discs: you never know when you'll need to reinstall or roll back Windows. And specialized software will help you with this.

Hello. I decided to write some more useful text today, before I lose my inspiration :). I'll tell you now about how to burn a Windows image to disk, this can be done in many ways and programs, but I will write how to burn an image with UltraISO, this is the coolest and easiest program for burning discs, I always use it. Well, if you don’t want to install additional programs, then you can burn the image to disk using the standard Windows 7 tool (Windows Vista also seems to have such a feature).

I looked at the instructions that I wrote on and, and realized that in them, I gave a link to an article about that. This article describes a way to simply burn files to disk. Music, movies, etc., but we need to create a boot disk for further installation of Windows. And the process of recording an image is slightly different from simply writing files.

When we download an operating system image from the Internet, it looks like a single file with the extension .iso. For some reason, it seems to me that many people simply took and wrote this file to disk, and then complained about why it didn’t boot from the boot disk when installing Windows, because it was configured.

And to avoid such problems with installing the operating system, I will write about how to correctly burn an .iso Windows image to disk. And then install Windows from this disk; there is a link to detailed installation articles above.

I also forgot to write about the size of Windows images and the disks that will be needed for recording. For Windows XP, a CD-R or RW disc is also suitable, it doesn’t matter. The Windows XP image takes up approximately 700 MB and fits on a CD. Of course, if this is not an assembly with many programs and additional utilities, then it may not fit on a CD. For Windows Vista, Windows 7 and 8 you need a DVD disc. There are larger images, the seven takes about 3 GB.

Burning an .iso Windows image to disk using UltraISO

After installing the program, it is associated with the .iso extension and all files in this format will be opened through UltraISO.

In order to burn an .iso image, simply open the image with Windows by double-clicking if the .iso looks like this:

The UltraISO program will launch, which will already have a bootable disk ready for recording. Insert the desired disc into the drive, press the burn button, and then confirm the burn by pressing “Burn”. You just need to wait until the program burns the disc, and you can start installing the Windows operating system.

And one more thing, in the speed settings it is best to choose a lower speed, the recording quality will be better. If you burn a disc at high speed, problems may occur during the installation of the operating system.

We create an installation disk with Windows using a standard tool

You can also burn an image of the installation disk using a standard tool. Such a utility seems to have appeared in Windows Vista, well, it definitely exists in Windows 7. With its help, you can burn an .iso image without any problems. And the resulting disk will be bootable, from which you can install the operating system.

On Windows 7 the .iso file looks like this:

Standard recording

In order to properly write an image to disk, it is best for you to use Explorer. Well, then it’s a matter of technology. We repeat what I wrote above.

Recording using the Run line

A bootable DVD or CD may be needed to install Windows or Linux, scan your computer for viruses, remove a banner from the desktop, perform a system restore - in general, for a variety of purposes. Creating such a disk in most cases is not particularly difficult, however, it may raise questions for a novice user.

In this instruction, we will try to explain in detail and step by step exactly how you can burn a bootable disk in Windows 8, 7 or Windows XP, what exactly is required for this and what tools and programs can be used.

What you need to create a bootable disk

Typically, the only thing needed is a bootable disk image and in most cases, this is a file with an .iso extension that you downloaded from the Internet.

This is what the boot disk image looks like

Almost always, when you download Windows, a recovery disk, a LiveCD or some Rescue Disk with an antivirus, you get exactly the bootable ISO image and all you have to do to get the necessary media is burn this image to disk.

How to burn a bootable disc in Windows 8 (8.1) and Windows 7

You can burn a bootable disk from an image in the latest versions of the Windows operating system without the help of any additional programs (however, this may not be the best way, which will be discussed below). Here's how to do it:

The main advantage of this method is that it is simple and straightforward, and does not require installation of programs. The main drawback is that there are no different recording options. The fact is that when creating a boot disk, it is recommended to set the minimum writing speed (and when using the described method, it will be written at the maximum) in order to ensure reliable reading of the disk on most DVD drives without downloading additional drivers. This is especially important if you intend to install an operating system from this disk.

The next method, using special programs for burning discs, is optimal for creating bootable discs and is suitable not only for Windows 8 and 7, but also for XP.

Burn a bootable disc using the free ImgBurn program

There are many programs for burning discs, among which Nero (which, by the way, is paid) seems to be the most famous. However, we will start with the completely free and at the same time excellent program ImgBurn.

You can download the ImgBurn disc burning program from the official website http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download (please note that for downloading you should use links like Mirror -Provided by, rather than the big green Download button). You can also download the Russian language for ImgBurn on the site.

Install the program, and during installation, refuse two additional programs that will try to install (you will need to be careful and uncheck the boxes).

After launching ImgBurn, you will see a simple main window in which we are interested in the Write image file to disk item.

After selecting this item, in the Source field you should specify the path to the boot disk image, in the Destination field select the device to record, and on the right indicate the recording speed and, best of all, select the lowest possible.

Then click the button to start recording and wait until the process finishes.

How to make a bootable disk using UltraISO

Another popular program for creating bootable drives is UltraISO and creating a bootable disk in this program is very simple.

Launch UltraISO, select “File” - “Open” from the menu and specify the path to the disk image. After that, click the button with the image of a burning disk “Burn CD DVD Image” (burn a disk image).

Select the recording device, Write Speed, and Write Method - best left as default. After that, click the Burn button, wait a little and the boot disk is ready!

How to make a bootable flash drive, watch the video.