Wednesday 10 October 2007

What do You Use to Create ISO Images from CD/DVD?

We create ISO images of all disks that we purchase for backup purchases. This has saved us on a number of occasions where a disk has fractured in a drive, been dropped, gouged, and other not so happy things.

We generally use the "Save Tracks" feature of Nero Burning ROM. But, it doesn't work all of the time for some reason ... Go figure.

We also use the ISORecorder by Alex Feinman. It works really well for CD based images but only sometimes for DVD.

So, what do you use for creating your ISO images from existing disks? How about dual layer disks?

We realize that this can be a touchy subject with some. But, we do believe in fair use rights here. We also believe in having all of the software we use in our business licensed properly. PERIOD.

How can we justify the use of a software product for "free" for whatever reason? It begs the question: If we used "free software", would we allow our products and/or services to go out the door for free?

We all know the answer to that: No!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

5 comments:

stryqx said...

CDBurnerXP. Free too.

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Chris,

Excellent utility.

Thanks for that.

Philip

Anonymous said...

Philip,

I've used UltraISO for years in my IT consulting business and never had a bad .iso, and I have a bunch of iso's.

I don't trust the Nero "save tracks" feature for unknown reasons and never use it.

I have no experience with CDBurnerXP so I won't comment.

UltraISO works on Audio CD/Data CD/DVD/DVD DL.
It's a mere $29.95 and major revisions are absolutely free.

UltraISO faq:
http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/faq.htm

A word to the wise: If you've ever used TrueCrypt, you can safely store all your .iso's in a TrueCrypt encrypted container so in case the drive gets lost, nobody has access to the .iso cache without password.
You can even burn an .iso back to disk while inside the container, TrueCrypt performance is truely amazing.

If you haven't used TrueCrypt you are sincerly missing out.


ZT3000
Beta tester of "0"s and "1"s

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

ZT3000,

Thanks for the utility suggestion, I will look into it further.

And yes, TrueCrypt is truly amazing ... no pun intended.

It operates the way I had hoped MS would incorporate "on the fly" encryption into their OSs.

Oh, and the "Hidden Volume" within the already encrypted volume defines this particular utility a "killer app" in my opinion. It is truly a kewl feature.

Philip

Anonymous said...

Imgburn

http://www.imgburn.com/

Reads cd/dvds to image, burns them back to disk, verifys a disk to an image, and basic disk creation features as well

Chris