A lot of information is now distributed in the form of disk images. A disk image is a file containing a copy of the structure file system, and files located on the disk. The image can be made from either a CD or DVD disc, so with hard drive(Winchester). From the hard drive, an image is created for backup storage and recovery. But I make images from CD/DVD discs for the purpose of copying and distribution.

Disk images are very convenient for distributing large software packages, games, operating systems, DVD movies. A disk image can have different formats, this can be easily determined by its extension.

The file extension is the last three letters of the file name after a period, often in Windows settings The option “Hide file type extensions” is installed, you definitely need to turn it off; this will come in handy more than once.

Open " My computer"> then drop down menu" Service" > Choose " Folder properties">tab" View"> uncheck the box" Hide extensions for registered file types".

Disk image formats

In the case of CD/DVD discs, the .ISO format is the most widespread, and you will most likely have to deal with this format. But there are not only iso images, you may also encounter formats such as .IMG, .DMG, and each program specializing in working with images and virtual disks has its own disk image format.

Let's look at the principle of working with disk images and virtual drives using the example of a very popular program DAEMON Tools, download latest version this program is possible.

After you download the program, you will need to install it

Installing DAEMON Tools

DAEMON Tools has a multilingual interface. At the very beginning of the installation process, you will be asked to select the interface language. Select Russian" Russian (Russian)" or whatever you like.

Next you will be asked to install DriverScanner, we politely refuse by selecting " I don't want to install DriverScanner"what does it mean in Russian" I don't want to install DriverScanner". In the next window, we refuse to collect and use our statistics.

Leave the installation path as default and wait for the program to install.

How to mount a disk image in Daemon Tools

Launch the program

For convenience, you can configure the program so that it starts automatically when you turn on the computer and minimizes to tray.

Clicking right click mouse on the program icon, select " Virtual drives" > "Add virtual DT drive d"

You will have another CD drive in your system, but unlike a real drive into which you can install a CD, images are mounted into a virtual drive. To make sure that the virtual drive was added successfully, simply go to " My computer", you should have another DVD disc there.

In order to finally start working with your image, all that remains is to mount it into your new virtual drive. Click the " button in the program Add image"

Choose your image

To speed up the process, you can use Alternative option connecting the image.

Right click on the icon DAEMON Tools, select from the menu " Virtual drives" > "DT 0" > "Mount image" and in the window that opens, select your image.

Now that the image is mounted, you can open " My computer" > your " Virtual drive", and work with the disk image as with a regular CD/DVD disk.

I hope now you understand the principle of working with disk images and virtual drives. And the question "How to mount a disk image?" closed for you.

Other programs designed for creating, mounting and working with disk images (for example, VirtualCD, Alcohol 120%, PowerISO, CloneCD) may have a different interface, or use different terminology, but the principle of operation is the same, so if you wish, you can figure it out with them .

DAEMON Tools Lite is a free program for emulating CD/DVD drives and creating disk images. Using Daemon Tools Lite, you can convert physical optical discs (CD/DVD/Blu-ray) into virtual drives to run a disk image directly from your computer without using a physical drive.

Starting with version DAEMON Tools Lite 10, the program has a redesigned interface in the style of Windows 10, some have been changed functionality programs. The general concept of the application has changed: free version the program only has basic functions, connection additional features, now occurs only on a paid basis.

Computer games and many multimedia programs recorded on physical media - optical CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs. From such an optical disk the game or program is installed on the computer.

Also, in many cases, in order for a game or program to work, a computer must be inserted into the drive. optical disk with this game. Basically, this is done to protect against the use of pirated software.

IN this moment, on the Internet you can find a huge number of games or programs saved in various disk image formats. Using a special program - a virtual drive emulator, the user can use the image with the game, running it directly on the computer in a virtual drive.

The DAEMON Tools Lite program creates a virtual drive on your computer that can be used as a regular physical drive. Therefore, the disk image can be launched directly from the computer, from the folder in which it is located.

To do this, the disk image will need to be mounted in a virtual drive. Daemon Tools can bypass disk protection: RMPS, SafeDisc, SecuROM, LaserLock.

Thus, the user can use the game disc image directly from the computer using an optical drive emulator, the Daemon Tools Lite program.

The manufacturer of the DAEMON Tools program has different functional versions of the program for emulating disk drives and for working with disk images. For normal use, the free version of the program - Daemon Tools Lite - is quite suitable.

DAEMON Tools Lite supports mounting disk images in the following formats:

• .mdx, .mds, .mdf, .iso, .b5t, .b6t, .bwt, .ccd, .cdi, .cue (.ape, .bin, .flac, .wav), .nrg, .isz, . tc, iscsi, .vhd, .vmdk, .vdi, .zip.

In Daemon Tools you can create images from CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs in the following formats:

• .iso, .mds, .mdx.

In total, you can create four virtual drives in the free DAEMON Tools Lite program. The virtual drive can be used exactly like a physical CD/DVD drive.

The virtual drive supports Blu-ray discs, so if you have a Blu-ray image on your computer, you can open this image using Daemon Tools Lite by mounting this image in the virtual drive.

You can download the free DAEMON Tools Lite program from the manufacturer's official website.

download Daemon Tools Lite

Install DAEMON Tools Lite on your computer. When installing the program on your computer, select free license.

In earlier versions of the program, after opening Explorer, you could see a new connected device: a virtual drive - BD-ROM drive. There was a program icon in the system tray, from where you could control the program’s operation, mount or dismount images.

In Daemon Tools Lite 10, there is no longer an icon in the notification area. You can control the program from the main program window, or directly from the context menu: opening images, if the corresponding formats were associated with this program.

Daemon Tools Lite program interface

The main part of the program's main window is occupied by the “Image Catalog” area. The images added to the program will be displayed here. Naturally, if necessary, you can delete images from this directory.

On the left side of the program window there is a vertical panel with tabs. In the free version of the program, you will be able to use the functionality from the “Images” and “New Image” tabs. To use additional features from the “Disc Burning”, “Virtual HDD”, “USB”, and “Writer Drive” tabs, you will need to pay.

In the lower left part of the program window, there are buttons “Settings”, “License”, “Help”.

At the very bottom of the program window there is a panel on which all virtual drives connected in DAEMON Tools Lite will be displayed. When you turn it on for the first time, using the “Scan” button, you can start searching for images on your computer to add the found images to the “image catalog.” You can add images to the catalog manually whenever you want.

In the images tab, you can add images to the “image catalog” using the “Add image” (plus) button, or find the image on your computer using the image search.

Daemon Tools Lite 10 Settings

You can enter the DAEMON Tools Lite settings from the main program window. To do this, click on the “Settings” button (gear) on the panel.

In the “Integration” tab you can change file associations with the DAEMON Tools Lite program.

How to mount a disk image in Daemon Tools Lite

You can mount a disk image with the game in DAEMON Tools from the main program window or from the context menu.

After you add the disk image to Daemon Tools Lite, you can select the image and then click on “Mount”. Otherwise, in the image directory, you can right-click on the disk image, and in context menu select “Mount”.

Then the installation of this game on your computer will begin.

When mounting an image in the main program window, you can simply drag the image with the game from the image directory onto the “Quick Mount” button.

To add a disk image, you can simply click on the “Quick Mount” button, and then select the disk image on your computer to add it to the drive emulator.

After this, a virtual drive will appear in Explorer - BD-ROM drive with the added image.

How to unmount an image in Daemon Tools Lite

To unmount the image, in the main window of the DAEMON Tools Lite program, you will need to click on the “Unmount all drives” item. You can also move the mouse cursor to the image of the image that is displayed in the virtual disks panel, and then click on the red cross.

The creators of the program developed new driver for emulating drives, which works much faster than before. Mounting and unmounting images occurs almost instantly.

How to create a disk image in Daemon Tools Lite

The process of creating a disk image can be started from the main window of the DAEMON Tools Lite program. To do this, in the “New image” tab you will need to click on the “Create image from disk” button. Other image creation options do not work in the free version of the program.

After this, a new window “Creating an image from disk” will open in the “Basic parameters” section. The "Drive" field will display your computer's disk drive. Insert a disc with a game or program into this drive.

You can choose a location to save the image on your computer. In the "Format" field, you can select the format (MDX, MDS, ISO) to save the disk image.

Other settings do not work in the free version of the program, including “Advanced settings”.

Once image creation is complete, the new disk image will be saved in the selected folder on your computer.

Conclusions of the article

A similar program can be installed on a computer that does not have a physical drive (netbooks, some laptops), since such a program - a CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc emulator, can help the user out more than once. You can use the virtual drive in DAEMON Tools Lite 10 like a real drive on your computer.

By using free program With DAEMON Tools Lite, you can create and use a virtual drive to install and run games and programs directly from your computer, without using a physical drive.

With every lover computer games There was such a hopeless situation as not knowing the rules for installing the game on the device. This made it impossible to enjoy the world of virtual reality. Not only games, but also many other files are now archived in such a way that you can launch them immediately, without special programs impossible. This is done not in order to complicate the user’s life, but in order to save disk space without losing quality. The most common situation when unpacking files is the inability of the device to recognize certain formats in which the program is recorded on disk. Of course, this very often applies to game programs, since they are quite large in size. The encoded formats can be, for example, ISO or MDF. Files of this type involve editing the game image and installing it on a virtual disk. See further instructions on how to complete this task and how to mount the game on disk.

How to mount a game image

• Understand that working with disk images is essentially no different from working with disks that you can hold in your hand or put in your bag.
• Create a virtual drive on your computer. To do this, you need to use the Daemon Tools Lite program. It is advisable to use the latest version of the program. How newer version, the more successfully it is compatible with your operating system and antivirus programs. If you don't have this option, use more old version, but do not choose the one below 4.35b.
• Install the Daemon Tools program on your computer after downloading its distribution package. There should be no problems installing the program; it is installed quite simply, follow the instructions of the installation wizard.
• After installing the program, restart your computer. Then launch Daemon Tools from the desktop shortcut, Start menu icon, or toolbar icon quick access located on the desktop.
• After opening the program, proceed to mount the disk image. Mounting is the operation of loading a disk into a virtual drive. The virtual drive is created automatically, but in some cases you may need another drive. In Daemon Tools, to create a list of images, click the “+” button, which is located at the bottom of the program window. Next, select the disk image and add it to the list.
• In the program interface, select the virtual drives tab.
• In this tab, select the “mount image” button from the list.
• Choose a disk whose name will have its own, unique letter.
• You have completed mounting. Now you can go to your virtual disk and install the game as usual.

Reverse game editing

To reverse mount the game, in other words, unmount the image, you must follow these simple steps:

• Select the desired drive in the main window of the Daemon Tools program and click on the button.
• These steps can also be repeated from the notification panel. Right-click on the icon corresponding to the Daemon Tools program.
• A menu will open for you. Next, select “Unmount all drives.

Today most games and software They are distributed on the Internet in the form of disk image files with the ISO extension. This is very convenient, because in order to play some new game, you don’t need to run to the store and stand in line for the treasured box. But what to do now with the downloaded image? Although it can be burned to a disc using any burning program, using special programs we can trick Windows into thinking that we have inserted regular media.

In one of the previous articles, we already wrote about applications that can create a disk image. Today we will talk about utilities that allow you to mount a virtual drive without optical storage media. Let's look at the most reliable and proven options for how to mount a disk image on a computer running the Windows operating system.

If you are a happy user of Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, you practically do not need to think about third-party solutions, because everything works out of the box. It so happened that for a while Windows development 8 came the gradual abandonment of optical media and an increasing number of manufacturers computer equipment began to refuse to install laser drives. It’s good that Microsoft developers saw the trend in time and introduced the ability to launch and mount a disk image in ISO format. Considering that the vast majority of files on the Internet are in this format, you will almost never need any other program. What do you need to do to open an ISO file through Windows Explorer?

1. Open the folder where the file is stored.
2. Right-click and select “Connect” or simply double-click on the file. In the first case, the virtual media will be displayed in Explorer, to view the contents of which you need to open it like a regular folder, in the second, you will immediately proceed to viewing the contents.
3. If you no longer need this virtual drive, right-click on it and select "Eject".

Click the “Extract” button

The only downside to this solution is that it only supports one ISO format, so if you want to mount an image with a different extension, you'll have to choose one of the following products in our review.

The undoubted leader in software development for working with virtual disks. Among the main advantages over competitors are the presence of a free version, although with some limitations, but which is enough for home use, minimal consumption of computer system resources, and support for almost all formats existing today. In addition, the program menu interface is very clear and friendly, so even an inexperienced user can understand it. How to use the utility?

• Go to the official website of the developer and download the installation file. When installing, select a free license, which will have a number of restrictions, for example, you can only mount four drives, and not all features will be available. In addition, you will be forced to view various information from partners.
• At the next stage, the program will offer to scan your computer for saved files with the ISO extension. Once completed, they will all be displayed in the main window and to mount the virtual drive, you will not need to search for it throughout the computer. Everything will be at hand.
• In the general list, find the image you are interested in, right-click on it and select “Mount”, after which it will immediately appear in Windows Explorer as a regular drive. The only difference is that instead of optical media, it will use virtual media. Also everyone active disks will be displayed at the bottom line of the main menu of the program.

Click “Mount”

• In the future, you can click on the “Quick Mount” button in the lower left corner of the window, after which an Explorer window will open in which you can select the image you are interested in.
• To disconnect virtual media, in the program menu, right-click on the active drive icon and select “Unmount”. You can even unmount all drives with one click by clicking the “Unmount all drives” button.

Ultra ISO

Very powerful program, which allows you to work with image files. Its capabilities allow the product to be used in a professional environment. Indeed, the functionality of the program is truly enormous. In addition to creating images, you can record them, creating a menu of any complexity, edit images without even unpacking them, compress them to save space on your hard drive, convert from one format to another, and much more. Experts recommend using this particular program to create a bootable flash drive when installing the Windows operating system on a computer.

If we return to the main topic of the material, the possibility that interests us most is mounting virtual drives into the system. Unfortunately, the program does not have a free version, and the trial version is so limited that it is almost impossible to use it. Fortunately, the limitations do not include the ability to run a disk image, so if you don’t need anything else other than this function, feel free to download the trial version. How to mount a disk image on the system using it?

• Install the program, when you launch it for the first time, select “Trial period” for free use, or “Buy Now” to purchase it.
• To add a new drive, click Menu - Open, find the desired ISO file through the explorer window, confirm your selection with the “Open” button.
• In the main menu, click Tools - Mount to virtual drive, or press the F6 button.

• In the small window that opens, click the “Mount” button and wait a few seconds, then Windows Explorer check the contents virtual disk.
• If you want to disable it, in the Virtual Drive Explorer, right-click, find the UltraISO item in the menu, hover over it and select “Unmount”.

Alcohol 52%

Another product from a world-famous developer. Unlike its older brother Alcohol 120%, it only allows you to mount virtual disks from image files. Paid version allows you to run 6 drives, while the free trial only allows 2. But this is quite enough for most home computer users. However, be prepared to view a certain amount of advertising for other products of the developer, which is not so easy to close, because you need to wait several seconds before the program launch button becomes active. However, the software has a very simple and uncomplicated menu. You just need to follow a few steps:

• Launch the program, in the main window click File - Open and select the desired image stored on your hard drive.
• In the main window, right-click on the file and select the “Mount to device” option.

Click “Mount to device”

• Open the virtual drive in Explorer.
• To disable it, return to the utility menu, right-click on the file in the window and select “Unmount image”.

Instead of a conclusion, or How to quickly use a virtual disk and disable it

The methods we have listed involve launching the program itself to emulate the drive. If it doesn't bother you, use this method. However, everything can be significantly simplified. During installation, some software automatically picks up system file associations and you can open any image as a regular file by double-clicking the mouse. In particular, Daemon Tools Lite provides this opportunity. When using other products, when you try to launch a disk image, the main program window will automatically launch, in which you will need to perform the appropriate manipulations. Most lucky Windows user starting from version 8, you don’t need to install anything, because you can open the ISO file through standard Explorer. If, while using the drive, you want to disconnect it, regardless of the software you are using, right in Explorer, right-click on the virtual drive and select “Eject”.

How often do you open ISO files on your computer? Tell us in the comments what programs you use before.

Most likely, if you came to this article, you are faced with the problem of mounting a disk image. What is it anyway? The answer to this question can be found in the article.

In general, any file with the .iso extension can be considered a disk image. By its nature, it is very similar to regular archives, whose main function is to compress the file size for convenient and fast transfer. Only here you don’t have to unpack the ISO file, but simply mount it on. This can be done using many programs, about them, and about Daemon Tools, in particular, will be discussed in the article, or rather, about

Using a disk image file

Before we start talking about how to mount an image in Daemon Tools, it’s worth talking about where to download this program and how to install it. It is necessary to download only from the official website of the software, since in other sources there is a high probability that this program will carry viruses. This is due to its popularity; as a rule, attackers make adjustments to those programs that are needed by many.

After you have downloaded the program, you should install it, but even here you need to be careful and keep track of all the checkboxes that will be checked automatically during the process of confirming requests. If you neglect this, it is likely that third-party software will be downloaded onto your computer, which will not cause significant harm to it, but will clog it up properly.

By the way, during the installation process, if you chose custom, you will be asked which files to open automatically using this program, be sure to check the box next to .iso.

So, now let's go directly to the disk volume in Daemon Tools. After correct installation all files with the .iso extension should automatically open in the program we need. Therefore, to create an image, simply open "My Computer" and go to the folder with the file. Double clicking on it will begin mounting the image.

That's all, now the answer has been received to the nagging question about how to mount the image in Daemon Tools, but this is just the first method, now let's talk about the second.

Using the program itself

If the topic of the article is Daemon Tools (how to mount an image), then you cannot ignore the method in which you need to use the program itself, that is, open it. This option, of course, takes longer than the first, but it may be necessary if necessary.

So, you will need:

1. Open the program. This can be done using a shortcut on the desktop or through the Start menu.
2. Find the path to the required file. After opening, you need to right-click on the virtual disk icon at the bottom and select “Mount” from the menu that appears.
3. After this, Explorer will open, you need to find the desired file in it, select it and click the “Open” button.

Once you do this, the process will start and you will be able to see the virtual disk you mounted in File Explorer.

List of similar programs

We have already figured out how to mount an image in Daemon Tools (or similar), now it’s worth talking about other programs that can do this.

So the list looks something like this:

1. Alcohol 120%. This is the second most popular image mounting program, it is free and located in open access. The installation process takes place in a similar way.
2. UltraISO. This representative is capable of not only mounting disk images, but also much more. Generally this function is just one of the components. However, it can be intimidating for beginners with its complex interface.
3. PowerISO. A little-known program that also allows you to mount images.
4. Alcohol 52%. A stripped-down version of Alcohol 120% for those who do not want to burden themselves with a complex interface.
5. WinMount Free Edition. This representative is very meager in its functionality, since it is intended only for mounting disk images. However, this is an excellent solution for those who require only this from the program.

Of course, it's up to you to decide, but currently the flagship on the market remains Daemon Tools.