How to mount ISO images using Alcohol 120%
Posted on April 30, 2009 at 5:03 am
Alcohol 120% is a really cool software that will let you create virtual CD/DVD ROM drives. With a virtual drive, you won’t have to load the physical media, so you can preserve those expensive games CDs or DVDs on your hard drive. It is also very useful for mounting ISO files so you dont’ have to burn them to physical media.
So how do we create a virtual CD/DVD ROM drive? In Alcohol you can set multiple virtual drives using its easy to use GUI. First open the Alcohol 120% application and then click Virtual Drive under the Options group:
The options window will open with the Virtual Drive parameter fields. Set the number of virtual drives to 1 if you want to make only 1 virtual drive (or more if you want). Check the Remount images upon system reboot if you want the drive to remain loaded after restarting Windows.
Set the drive letter of the virtual drive using the Drive letter field. By default it will use the next available drive letter it could find from your computer. Click OK to activate the drive.
In the example above it used the drive “F” as the drive letter. You can confirm the drive by exploring it on Windows Explorer:
If you click the drive you will see a message like below:
This means the disk has no media inside it. Since this is a virtual drive, we need to point this to a CD or DVD image (like an ISO or any disk image file). To load an ISO file, right click the drive using the Alcohol window and then choose Mount Image:
Locate the ISO file using the Open dialog box:
Then you should be able to see the image loaded on the virtual drive:
After this you can use the virtual drive like an ordinary CD/DVD ROM drive. Browse the drive to see the content of the ISO image:
You may use the same steps above for any of the image file formats shown below:
If you want to change the image file loaded, use the steps above to point to other image files.
Overall, I am very happy with how Alcohol 120% handled my image files. With this tool I don’t have to waste blank CDs or DVDs just to be able to use the image files. You can also read my previous post on how to mount ISO images using Virtual CD-ROM from Microsoft.
Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.
» Filed Under Software Reviews
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This is a very thorough tutorial. I used this software back in the day and having your write-up for it would have eased the frustration process a bit.
I will warn some though: when I tried loading this on my new Vista, I continuously got the Blue Screen of Death. Might just be me (most stories of Vista are ‘just me’ stories), but I thought I’d share.
However I was successful with installing Alcohol 52% onto that same Vista. And the steps for mounting disc images are the same for 52% as they are for 120%.
Again, thanks Ben!
Great walk through, I’ve tried to mount a few times, with your description and screen shots, I breezed through it.
I always seem to forget the steps to mounting an ISO file and i searched on youtube for a video and nothing came up. I accidentally found this website and read through your instructions. There simple enough a monkey could do it. Thanks for the instructions
When I try and create a virtual drive, there are no options on the drive letter screen. It is just blank and no options. I hit ok and nothing happens. Please help!
What the F—-k!!! your tutorial is easy and very very helpful.. this is my first time mounting an ISO file and using alcohol… man!! you rock!! tnx…
Orion — It makes a default for you in alphabetical order
example:
your cd drive is E:/ it will make it F:/ just like in the picture
Snug, yes I read all of the instructions. But it will not make any drives. No E:/, F:/ etc. Is there anything else I can try?
Thank you so much. This is really helpful. I appreciate it a lot! I really needed help mounting an ISO image!
Thank you very much for this program. I have now learned how to use virtual drives to mount ISO images and it works great. Thanks.
You can mount an ISO image in Windows 7 or Vista using MagicISO or PowerISO. Those are better than this program for sure.
Excellent tutorial for beginners like me. Any other free programs to mount ISO images?
Thnx buddy helpd me a mount an ISO image quickly…ur grt!!! cheers!
How to Mount iso? winmount.com/mount_iso.html
Winmount(www.winmount.com) is a powerful windows utility which is dedicated to managing files and disks impressively and conveniently. WinMount supports compressing files to MOU RAR ZIP 7Z, decompressing and browsing MOU ZIP RAR CAB ARJ ISO GZ BZ2 TAR WIM files.
WinMount can mount MOU RAR ZIP to a virtual disk or a local folder, which enabling you to use the files inside directly without extraction, saves your time and disk space dramatically.
WinMount is also an image tool, supports mounting ISO ISZ BIN MDS/MDF NRG IMG CCD CUE to virtual DVD-ROM, supports mounting FLAC, APE, WV, WAVE to virtual CD-ROM, supports mounting VHD, VDI, VMDK, WMT, Microsoft WIM, and folder as a HDD virtual disk.
In addition, WinMount can create a new blank RAM-disk, size from 64M to 4G, data will be lost when restart.
Me parece una página dirigida para quienes ya han usado el programa Alcohol, pues se asumen que se conocen los pasos a seguir, por ejemplo;
a) “Compruebe la imágenes Vuelva a reiniciar el sistema si desea que el impulso para seguir siendo cargado después reiniciar windows” (¿?), ademas,
b) en el paso que pide que se inserte un disco a la unidad, no entiendo lo que sigue sobre como cargar el archivo ISO.
Gracias
This was the best tutorial…I couldn’t find a darn thing on their forums or in the help docs..this saved me hours..Thank you so much!!!