Advancements in technology have provided us with an unimaginable number of tools that have made our lives easier, which included both our daily life and our work life. With the coming of computers to homes and workplaces, everything became easier and more practical to do.
From games to multimedia encyclopedias to be used on you PC and even outside of it, a huge amount of important information contained within your discs tends to be lost due to the passing of time or other factors.
Then, is there any way that we could make a backup of that information? Well, yeah. That what we mean when we talk about an “ISO image.”
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What’s an ISO image?
It’s a type of file that contains an exact replica of the information located on a disc (CD, DVD or Blu-ray,) with the goal of backing it up to protect it against damage caused by the passing of time and of other circumstances.
Advantages of an ISO image
1. Storage. In them, we can store a huge amount of information that can be transferred over the internet, for instance.
2. Portability. Whenever you create ISO images of the discs that contain important information or information of our interest, they allow us to store said images on smaller devices (any extractable device that could be connected via USB, for instance,) where we will be able to transport them without needing to carry those annoying disc towers from one place to the other.
3. Functionality. There are multiple occasions when we have information stored in discs (CD, DVD, Blu-ray) that we want to open in other devices, but these devices lack the respective units to play discs. This won’t happen if we have said information on an ISO image and if we have USB ports or slots to transfer information to the new device (and also slots that read SD or microSD cards).
Maybe one of the disadvantages of ISO images is that they do not compress the backed-up information. Instead, they preserve their original size.
This could be an inconvenience if, for instance, we wish to transfer an ISO image of a large size via email.
Even so, there will always be other tools that allow us to achieve our goals, if that were the case, such as using the famous WinRAR, among others.
Best programs to create an ISO image
To create an ISO image, it is necessary to use a program that allows you to do said task. But this program doesn’t come built-in with Windows, therefore, it will be necessary to locate the best and easiest to use program, download it, and install it in our computer.
1. UltraISO
From the wide array of programs of this nature, this is one of the programs that has been in the market for the longest time (around 10 years), and it has multiple tools that make it one of the users’ favorites.
UltraISO is capable of creating images of a really high quality since not only it is a program in charge of creating a replica of the information to be backed-up, but it also makes an evaluation process of the files to be copied to verify damaged sectors on the disk and, if there are any, look for solutions to the found problems so that the ISO image can be of high performance.
Even if their design isn’t anything groundbreaking nor visually impressive, the program itself perfectly achieves the goals for which it was created.
UltraISO’s functionalities
1. You can make a backup from any CD or DVD on your PC’s hard drive as an ISO image.
2. You can make ISO images of files and folders found on your PC’s hard drive.
3. Once the ISO image has been created, you can burn them on a CD, DVD, or any pluggable USB device.
4. It is capable of opening and extracting files or folders of a previously created ISO image.
5. It is capable of editing a previously created ISO image, allowing you to add folders or files to it.
6. It allows you to covert many CD or DVD image formats (such as the case of CCD, NRG, MDS, among others) to formats such as ISO, CCD, NRG, MDS, etc.
7. It can work as a virtual CD or DVD player since it can directly execute the programs contained on the ISO image without, obviously, needing to insert a disk.
8. Being able to work as a virtual unit that reads ISO images, this program allows you to avoid needing to reinsert a disk on our computer after copying it as an ISO image. This turns out to be quite useful to those who have computers that lack a unit that plays disks.
9. It has many conversion formats. Among them, the most important ones are: CCD, BIN, MDS, IMG, CIF, BIN, etc.
2. Power ISO
It is also considered as one of the bests programs and a powerful tool to create ISO images on Windows. Its interface is simple, but this doesn’t decrease any of the quality needed to create ISO images nor any of the other functionalities derived from this one.
Power ISO functionalities
1. It has the capacity of processing disk image files (on CD, DVD or Blu-ray).
2. It has the capacity of creating, editing, recording, opening, extracting, compressing, or converting ISO files.
3. It has the capacity of functioning as a playable virtual unit.
4. It has the capacity of processing all CD, DVD Blu-ray, ISO, and BIN image files.
5. It has the capacity of offering a huge variety of tools to allow you to use your ISO images, as well as the copies that you may want to use.
6. It has an interface with a simple appearance that is compatible with the most recent Windows programs.
7. It has the capacity of supporting many formats, such as BIN, CDI, DAA, NRG and ISO (obviously).
3. Alcohol 120%
This program turns out to be an ideal tool: it is convenient, simple, and very intuitive to use. We can find it as a trial version, which doesn’t mean that it won’t offer you a wide array of interesting options.
Alcohol 120% functionalities
1. It has the capacity of creating and mounting an ISO image on Windows with a guaranteed quality since it is designed for Windows, which makes it easier for your operating system to execute the software.
2. It is capable of creating CD, DVD and Blu-ray images.
3. It offers the option of creating reading virtual units (31 units, to be exact) that make it possible to read each of the formats derived from them.
4. It has the capacity of transferring virtual images to real disks (physical) so that people can share its content if they so desire.
5. It is capable of supporting formats such as ISO (obviously), IMG, NRG, CCD, ISZ, among others.
6. It is the ideal program to make CD or DVD backups. Whenever creating ISO images of them, they can be executed directly from the hard drive, making the time needed to access this information much shorter.
7. Thanks to the creation of ISO images, you can watch movies in DVD format or execute games without needing to insert the disk on the PC’s optical drive. This will also guarantee faster speeds on the involved processes.
4. Daemon tools
It is also considered one of the best programs to create an ISO image on Windows, as well as managing it conveniently and effectively. Besides that, its appearance is quite attractive for the user. Maybe one of its most important features is that, with this program, it is possible to evade the restrictions that many times prevent us from using certain disks.
Daemon tools’ functionalities
1. It is a powerful tool to create ISO images on CDs, DVDs, or Blu-rays.
2. It is capable of managing multiple formats such as ISO, CDI, BWT, CUE, among others.
3. It has the capacity of helping the user create, manage, and extract the content backed up on the ISO image.
4. It allows you to mount all kinds of all currently known disk image files.
5. It also allows you to emulate of up to four HDD + DT + SCSI devices.
6. It offers you the ability of creating optical disk images and accessing them through an organized catalog.
Now that you know these tools to create ISO images and backup all of your important information, we hope that you leave us your comments and share this information on your social media accounts.