Can someone tell me what a .ISO file is?

Answer 1

An ISO image (.iso) is an informal term for a disk image of an ISO 9660 file system. More loosely, it refers to any optical disk image, even a UDF image.

As is typical for disk images, in addition to the data files that are contained in the ISO image, it also contains all the filesystem metadata (boot code, structures, and attributes). All of this information is contained in a single file. These properties make it an attractive alternative to physical media for the distribution of software that requires this additional information as it is simple to retrieve over the Internet.

Some of the common uses include the distribution of operating systems, such as Linux or BSD systems, and LiveCDs.

Most CD/DVD authoring utilities can deal with ISO images: Producing them either by copying the data from existing media or generating new ones from existing files, or using them to create a copy on physical media.

Most operating systems (including Mac OS, BSD, Linux, and Windows with Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM panel) allow these images to be mounted as if they were physical disks, making them somewhat useful as a universal archive format.

Console emulators, such as ePSXe, and many other emulators that read from CD/DVD, are able to run ISO/BIN (and other similar formats) instead of running directly from the CD drive. Better performance is achieved by running an ISO since there is no waiting for the drive to be ready and the hard drive I/O speed is many times faster than the CD/DVD drive.

A copy of CD contents, stored as an .iso file, is made this way: the ripper searches for the sectors of the CD that have been used, say 251,000 for instance (there are 330,000 sectors on a 74 min CD and 360,000 sectors on an 80 min CD). Each sector is copied to the .ISO file, one by one. For CDs each sector is 2048 bytes, the .ISO file should then be of size 251,000 x 2048 = 514,408,000 byte.

Answer 2

ISO 9660, a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), defines a file system for CD-ROM media. It aims at supporting different computer operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and systems that follow the Unix specification, so that data may be exchanged.

DVDs may also use the ISO 9660 file system. However, the UDF file system is also commonly used on DVDs.

Answer 3

Yes it is a image file, like everyone has been telling you. The the reason someone would make a ISO file is because they only have one ROM "CD-RW". So, for example, to copy a CD, you would make an ISO "copy" and then write that copy to a blank disk.
for more info visit www.magiciso.com/tutorials

Answer 4

An ISO image (.iso) is an informal term for a disk image of an ISO 9660 file system. More loosely, it refers to any optical disk image, even a UDF image.

As is typical for disk images, in addition to the data files that are contained in the ISO image, it also contains all the filesystem metadata (boot code, structures, and attributes). All of this information is contained in a single file. These properties make it an attractive alternative to physical media for the distribution of software that requires this additional information as it is simple to retrieve over the Internet.

Some of the common uses include the distribution of operating systems, such as Linux or BSD systems, and LiveCDs.

Most CD/DVD authoring utilities can deal with ISO images: Producing them either by copying the data from existing media or generating new ones from existing files, or using them to create a copy on physical media.

Most operating systems (including Mac OS, BSD, Linux, and Windows with Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM panel) allow these images to be mounted as if they were physical disks, making them somewhat useful as a universal archive format.

Console emulators, such as ePSXe, and many other emulators that read from CD/DVD, are able to run ISO/BIN (and other similar formats) instead of running directly from the CD drive. Better performance is achieved by running an ISO since there is no waiting for the drive to be ready and the hard drive I/O speed is many times faster than the CD/DVD drive.

A copy of CD contents, stored as an .iso file, is made this way: the ripper searches for the sectors of the CD that have been used, say 251,000 for instance (there are 330,000 sectors on a 74 min CD and 360,000 sectors on an 80 min CD). Each sector is copied to the .ISO file, one by one. For CDs each sector is 2048 bytes, the .ISO file should then be of size 251,000 x 2048 = 514,408,000 bytes.

You may use nero to copy the image disc( *.iso) to a cd
or use a program called Isobuster to open it and see the files, sectors and bytes
Winrar also can open it

Answer 5

It is a cd or dvd image file. You can think of it as a container for information stored on a cd or dvd. You can burn them with nero, roxio, and many other burners. MagicIso will let you extract them and simply run them from you desktop with out burning them to a cd. You could also you Alcohol 120% or nero drive and mount the .iso in a virtual cd drive and use it that way. The .iso format come in very handy for a quick way to store and share data.

Answer 6

An ISO file is a file containing an image of all the data on a drive. You would most commonley use it to backup your computer as one single iso file.

Answer 7

If you are planning to burn an ISO file,
take a look at this tutorial
http://coldpctips.blogspot.com/2006/08/burning-iso-file-using-nero.html

Answer 8

an .iso file is an image of a CD. you can use a program like Nero or Alcohol 120% to burn it to a CD or open it.

Answer 9

Image file standard suffix.
All of the above are accurate and I suggest Wikipedia for a good overview

Answer 10

.iso is a compressed disk image file . it is used to back up, to burn cd , creat virtual drives etc.