An ISO image is basically an uncompressed archive file of the digital media or the disk which is created by copying an optical disc, from sector to sector, into a file. Currently, many tools are available on the market to create, mount, and manipulate ISO image files. One such image tool is Jihosoft ISO Maker Free. This utility allows you to backup disk as ISO image, create ISO image from files and folders, extract contents of an ISO file, and burn ISO image to DVD disc. Here’s a look at the four main functions of Jihosoft Free ISO Maker.

Byte Backup - Backup Disk as ISO Image
From the detected drive list, select the disk or partition yow want to create a backup image file. Once you confirm the selection, the program will immediately take sector by sector image of selected region.

File-format incompatibility between Apple Mac OS and Microsoft Windows operating-systems is something every user faces utilizing both operating-systems. One such incompatibility is the disk-image format used by both operating-systems, while Apple Mac OS uses .CDR format Microsoft Windows utilizes the international disk-imaging standard .ISO, so you would need something to convert .CDR to .ISO file-format and vice-versa to use them under rival operating-systems. Luckily, the only difference between two is the file-extension, and all one needs to do is to change the .ISO/.CDR extension to make them work interchangeably without any real file-format conversion. We can also use this fact to make perfectly bootable USB disks from .CDR files from Windows and Linux using existing tools allowing cloning of .ISO format to USB.

Nero is definitely not my choice of disk compilation utility, however, it is without a doubt one of the most popular disc burning software and therefore you might land-up on some disc-image file compiled in "Nero Image" format (.nrg file). Thankfully, .nrg files can be easily converted to standard .ISO file-format which is supported by all disc burning utilities, nrg2iso does exactly that by converting Nero CD images to ISO-9660 CD images with a single click almost instantly.

Microsoft Windows 7 come equipped with an handy feature allowing burning of .ISO image files without needing any third-party application the fast and easy way, however, it still lacks a much needed image file mounting feature which allows users to access disc-image files as virtual CD/DVD drives, there are many free virtual CD/DVD mounting utilities out there and MagicDisc is one of them getting the job done on Windows 7, Vista and XP.