.ISO and .NRG an explanation please

[The_Animus]

I used to be so up to date with everything and knew how it all worked. Now I'm getting older and it gets more complicated than ever. Nonetheless I can figure out most of it. The only annoying part is being unable to ask questions I have.

But thats where this lovely forum comes in.

Okay, so to my understanding .iso and .nrg files are image files which contain all the data of a CD or dvd. In order to use these file types you need a certain program, some of which include Daemon Tools and Nero. Currently I only have Daemon Tools. Now in order to use these files you must 'mount' them using DT. It seems to me that you can only mount one thing at a time using DT unless all the .iso or .nrg files are all zipped together. It would also seem that once a file is unmounted you can no longer use it until it is mounted again, which is a pain. Now I don't have Nero but I heard that you use this program to burn these image files onto a CD/DVD and then the CD/DVD is then basically a copy of those files and you can simply fun those files by inserting the CD.

If anyone would mind pointing out if any of my understanding is correct that would be great. Any other information regarding these programs or file types would also be great.

[tsg]

I don't have any experience with .nrg files, but my understanding is that an .iso file is a byte-copy image of the data on the CD.

Most of my CD burning is done in Linux. If I wanted to copy a CD, I would first put the disk I'm copying in my drive and do

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=cdrom.iso


The dd command simply reads bytes from the device (/dev/cdrom in this case) and writes them to a file (cdrom.iso in this case). Then, using cdrecord (basically dd for burning a disk), I can then write that .iso file to a new disk and have a copy.

I can also mount the cdrom.iso file, using a loopback device, and it will appear as if I mounted a cd.

For creating a new .iso file from existing files on my hard drive, I would use mkisofs (which stands for Make ISO filesystem) and it would copy my files into the .iso image, which I could then burn to the cd with cdrecord.

My guess is that DaemonTools and Nero perform similar functions under Windows.

I have no idea whether any of that helps you.

[The_Animus]

Thanks for the response.

What exactly is mounting? I'm not really sure what it is/does. Also I mounted a .iso which allowed me to install a program. So I don't need to have it continue being mounted to use it because now its installed as a program on my computer. However this program uses language libraries with it so in order to do anything with my program I have to mount another .iso file and then run the program. As long as its mounted I can run the program and then choose that language library but if I unmount it then the program is useless because it cannot find any libraries to use with it.

Anyone know how I can make it so that I don't have to keep the file mounted to have the language library available to use in the program?

[tsg]

Thanks for the response.

What exactly is mounting? I'm not really sure what it is/does.

Mounting, under Linux especially, is essentially telling the operating system to open the filesystem for access. Under Windows (and, I expect, Mac), the process is transparent to the user. When you insert a CD into the drive, the operating system first detects exactly what file system the CD is encoded with (iso9660 most commonly) and what extensions have been used. Then it reads the directory index which tells it what files are on the disk and how to find them. Under Linux, this is an explicit command. From then on it appears to the operating system as a regular drive with the exception that it is read-only.

Also I mounted a .iso which allowed me to install a program. So I don't need to have it continue being mounted to use it because now its installed as a program on my computer. However this program uses language libraries with it so in order to do anything with my program I have to mount another .iso file and then run the program. As long as its mounted I can run the program and then choose that language library but if I unmount it then the program is useless because it cannot find any libraries to use with it.

Anyone know how I can make it so that I don't have to keep the file mounted to have the language library available to use in the program?

Without knowing the specifics, I would hazard a guess that, once you have the .iso with the language library mounted, you should be able to copy the library to your hard drive. I'm not sure how you are accessing the library files after you mount it (does it show up as a drive on your computer, perhaps?), but there should be a way to copy them.

[tsg]

I just had a quick gander at the DaemonTools online help. It appears the iso image is mounted as another drive, so you should be able to open that drive with Explorer and drag-and-drop the library files out of the iso image onto your hard drive.

[Malamule]

I use ISO files all the time. You can burn them to a disk(many programs to do this) or mount them with Daemon Tools. Daemon tools allows you to mount 4 isos at once.

Pull the iso for your language of choice out of the RAR or Zip file and mount it with Daemon Tools. Run the application and it should see it. You can also build a CD/DVD ISO with Nero or CDcreator or whatever. You put all the files you want into file selection and use the 'image writer' to burn it as an ISO/nrg/bin file.

[illogical]

traditional audio CDs are CDDA, ISO9660 is a standard, and NRG is a Nero/Ahead image.

Windows/dos also has cdrtools and mkisofs. Nero has nerocmd, which can be used to automate burns. the big advantage to mkisofs is that you can easily add boot images, isolinux, etc. i also prefer the syntax of mkisofs/cdrecord over nero.

[Malamule]

Anyone know how I can make it so that I don't have to keep the file mounted to have the language library available to use in the program?

Why do you care if it's mounted or not? It just adds a drive letter, it doesn't affect performance. If you need to mount more devices, change the number of devices in daemon tools.

I assume you're talking about Rosetta Stone. It will only work if the language files are on a CD/DVD or mounted with Daemon Tools(or similar mounting tool)

[The_Animus]

I assume you're talking about Rosetta Stone.

Correct.

Why do you care if it's mounted or not? It just adds a drive letter, it doesn't affect performance. If you need to mount more devices, change the number of devices in daemon tools.


Well I was under the impression that you needed to keep DT running in order for what it mounted to continue being mounted. And having extra programs running does affect performance.

It will only work if the language files are on a CD/DVD or mounted with Daemon Tools(or similar mounting tool)

Maybe this is odd and maybe not but I mounted the first japanese iso and then closed DT but the language file was still available in Rosetta. Does this mean that whatever was mounted in DT stays mounted even if I close DT? Also how does Rosetta stone even know where to look for the mounted iso file?

[Malamule]

Well I was under the impression that you needed to keep DT running in order for what it mounted to continue being mounted. And having extra programs running does affect performance.

It's very low overhead. Very minimal memory used.


Maybe this is odd and maybe not but I mounted the first japanese iso and then closed DT but the language file was still available in Rosetta. Does this mean that whatever was mounted in DT stays mounted even if I close DT? Also how does Rosetta stone even know where to look for the mounted iso file?

You closed the system tray icon "control panel", but you didn't unload the driver. It's a low level driver that you'd only see if you ran sysinternals autoruns or a similar tool. So to answer your question, yes, it's still running after you close the system tray icon. You'd have to uninstall it to get rid of it. That said, Daemon Tools is a safe, stable thing. It has very little impact on system performance. Don't sweat it, really. It's a tiny little driver with about a 5-6mb control panel.

Rosetta stone looks for any optical device for pics and languages. The DT driver emulates that so that when Rosetta polls the OS and asks for optical devices, windows reports that DT is optical and Rosetta goes ahead and loads it. Rosetta won't load on any non optical device as part of their copy protection.

[The_Animus]

Thank you malamule. Your responses have been very helpful.

So if I understand you correctly even if I could find a way to extract the files or data from the iso language file and store it on my harddrive Rosetta stone would not work for that language file because it needs to be read from an optical device such as the CD/DVD ROM or DT(which emulates an optical device). Is that correct?

[Malamule]

Thank you malamule. Your responses have been very helpful.

So if I understand you correctly even if I could find a way to extract the files or data from the iso language file and store it on my harddrive Rosetta stone would not work for that language file because it needs to be read from an optical device such as the CD/DVD ROM or DT(which emulates an optical device). Is that correct?

Yup. You've got it. You cannot just put the files on the hard disk and have Rosetta Stone find and use them. They want their CDrom in the drive which can easily be emulated with DT.

Daemon Tools was written for this exact reason...gamers(primarily) hated having to flip tons of disks in and out...so DT was born. There are some other tools, but Daemon Tools is a very good multi-platform, low overhead driver.

[The_Animus]

Excellent! Thank you everyone for your help!