FileDisk ISO Mounter
Another Update: I have run into the same issue with Windows XP as many of the people who have posted comments below: the “Error loading C:\WINDOWS\system32\ShellExt\FileDisk.dll, Invalid access to memory location”. The solution I found is to add C:\WINDOWS\system32\Rundll32.exe (Run a DLL as an App) as an exception to your Data Execution Prevention (DEP) filter. This may not be the most secure thing to do, so I’ll have to investigate it more. Expect an update on this later.
—
Update: I revised the package to FileDisk ISO Mounter 1.2.1. The new revision contains a couple fixes for iso filetype support in Windows.
—
Today I was looking for a easy way to mount ISO images to virtual drives. I had tried and really liked Microsoft’s Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel however, it did not have a command line interface that would allow me to automate some of the setup of a virtual drive. I was looking to basically save my valuable mouse clicks.
If you have a large hard disk (as most of us do these days) and you often find yourself shuffling through your stack of CD/DVD discs looking for that software app or back-up disc or whatever, then saving Disc Images (ISOs) to your hard drive is the way to go. And now I’ve got a very small, slick and free virtual disc mounting tool that makes it so easy to access those disc images.
FileDisk ISO Mounter was packaged by me, Jeffothy, but consists of:
FileDisk (a virtual disk driver) by Bo Branten
FileDiskExt.dll (shell extension to handle iso files) by Sherpya
FileDisk.inf (installer) by Bilou Gateux
Download FileDisk ISO Mounter 1.2 FileDisk ISO Mounter 1.2.1 now! It’s pretty sweet.
Note: I have only tested this on Windows XP Professional w/ SP2. Use at your own risk, but also, let me know if you have any issues.
Mounting an ISO images file to a virtual drive is simple.
- Right click on the ISO file
- Click Mount via FileDisk and
- Choose the drive letter to mount
Umounting is just a simple. You can either
- Right click the ISO file and choose “Umount ISO image from drive…” OR
- Right click the drive itself (My Computer) and choose “Umount…”
Thanks to all those mentioned above for coding the various components. Hopefully my package helps some people who are looking for a similar solution. Let me know if you use it!
By the way, I have tried ISOBuster, DaemonTools, Alcohol and a few others but they all seem to be bloated for my purposes.
June 28th, 2006 at 11:37pm
Hey! Your blog really helped me out. I looked forver trying to find an app that would do just this. THANKS! :-)
July 4th, 2006 at 12:07am
im running windows xp pro 64 bit edition, and it didnt work. ive been having trouble finding software that can do this and is compatable with my os. if you come across anything, post it up. it’d be much appreciated.
July 4th, 2006 at 7:31am
To mike: http://www.winimage.com/misc/filedisk64.htm
August 4th, 2006 at 12:05am
Found a possible bug. Visual Studio 2005 takes 2 cd’s. You have to switch them during the installation. I was unable to unmount the virtual drive during this installation process with your package.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:05pm
hey dude! This worked nicely!
Thanks! (i got problems with daemontools+macdrive, and that sucked ;)
September 8th, 2006 at 11:08am
It looks nice, but i keep getting an error stating “Cannot mount the device, try incrementing max number of devices”. I tryed that and i still cant figure it out. Please help me.
September 9th, 2006 at 5:09pm
Great tool! Thanks… Worked in Vista too.
September 13th, 2006 at 4:35pm
Nice product…but wouldnt install on xp pro sp2. The installer runs, then a CMD window comes up and copies dlls to win directory. Then nothing. Right click on an ISO and the mount option isn’t in the menu. Double click the ISO and you get an error: Error Loading c:\WINDOWS\system32\ShellExt\FileDisk.dll Invalid access to memory location.
The file does reside at that path.
Ideas?
September 14th, 2006 at 11:34am
I keep getting “Error loading c:\windows\system32\shellext\filedisk.dll invalid access to memory location” I’ve had this error message on two separtate machines now. Any ideas?
September 29th, 2006 at 4:39pm
Jeffothy ! Great little program, congratulations ! but… I installed on 2 systems: XP pro in English: perfect; XP pro in French: does not work ! some key or paths may be different… ? Install and uninstall run fine though. But no right click for mount/unmount available…
November 16th, 2006 at 8:49am
I can’t get it to work on XP Pro. Works fine on Vista though – same issue as noted above with “ayman Said” Sept 13
November 28th, 2006 at 9:39pm
Where do I find the mounted drive, it says Drive is mounted and what not but where do I find them? It isn’t located at My Computer or anything..
December 1st, 2006 at 9:29pm
Is it possible to mount anything besides isos? Like mdf and img files?
January 24th, 2007 at 4:23pm
Check your DEP settings, they are probably blocking it.
I set mine to allow explorer.exe and it worked.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:13am
One of the problems I have had with FileDisk in the past, is that you must be Local Admin in order to mount images. Does this package work with just User privileges? Anyone have suggestions how to get it to work for those who are just Users? FileDisk is great, but this is the only problem we have.
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:01am
I used your porgram 1.2.1 on xp, but I built a Vista machine today and wanted to use FileDisk. It installed on, but comes up with a memory error when I try to load an ISO. Can any one help?
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:26am
Ok, Stupid Me… {laughing} The fix at the top of the forum solved that problem. BUT
When I mount the ISO file, the only choices for drive letters are A & B. So I chose A and opened the C# iso and then clicked on the Setup icon. It responds “A:\setup.exe The specified path does not exist. Check the path, and then try again.”
What am I doing wrong this time?
February 9th, 2007 at 12:52pm
Hey Jeff!
Great posts … awesome to see lots of comments, you’re popular.
I’d just like to be an ass and point out that Mac OS X comes with a similar app built in … mwahaha. K, I’ll stop now.
Sweet app.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:45am
why don’t you mount both at once!?
March 14th, 2007 at 9:39pm
how do i uninstall this thing? im having trouble with lagging pc
March 14th, 2007 at 9:51pm
how to uninstall Jeffothy’s Kyanags iso mounter getting the C:\WINDOWS\system32\ShellExt\FileDisk.dll, Invalid access to memory location”. problem
April 8th, 2007 at 5:13pm
Installing on XP Pro Version 2002 Service Pack 2
0. Download and Extract the [ FileDisk ISO Mounter 1.2.1.zip ] file
0.a. Double ckick and run the [ FileDisk ISO Mounter 1.2.1.exe ] file
1. Configuring DEP to allow it to work
1.a. Right Click [ My Computer ] select [ Properties ]
1.b. Select [ Advanced ] tab
1.c. Select [ Performance: Settings ] button
1.d. Select [ Data Execution Prevention ] tab
1.e. Select [ Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select ] radio button
1.f. Navigate to [ C:\WINDOWS\System32\ShellExt\ ]
1.g. Type “blind” [ File name: FileDisk.dll ] press [ Open ] button
1.h. Navigate to [ C:\WINDOWS\System32\ ]
1.i. Select [ FileDisk.exe ] press [ Open ] button
1.j. Navigate to [ C:\WINDOWS\System32\ ]
1.i. Select [ rundll32.exe ] press [ Open ] button
2. The following should show up in the DEP window
[x] FileDisk Virtual Disk Driver
[x] FileDiskExt Shell Extension
[x] Run a DLL as an App
3. Click [ Apply ] button
WARNING! Your changes require the system to reboot
4. Navigate to an ISO image file
4.a. Right click on the file and hover over [ O Mount Via FileDisk ]
4.b. Select a drive letter name from the flyout menu
4.c. Note the drive letter will not appear in the Explorer drive list view for approximately 60 “whole” seconds, ADD suffers (of which most geeks suffer from) may judge the process a failure. It is not, it will appear reliably.
4.d. Beware of double clicking the drive and the Explorer default to execute Autorun.inf aka Autoplay
4.e. Right click on the drive letter and select Explore if you just want to access the contents
5. Umounting
5.a. Open Explorer drive list view
5.b. Right click “mounted” drive letter
5.c. Select [ O Umount ]
5.d. Note: You must not have the drive letter open in any other window or you’ll get –> FileDisk: Error unmounting device [ Access is denied ] [ OK]
5.e. Note the drive letter will not disappear in the Explorer drive list view for approximately 60 “whole” seconds, ADD suffers (of which most geeks suffer from) may judge the process a failure. It is not, it will disappear reliably.
5.f. Note momentarily while the disk is unmounting a slightly alarming red ! may appear next to the drive with a few minor words about drive not found. This is very brief and resolves itself in a few seconds.
April 9th, 2007 at 10:12am
I have followed all of the advice on this blog and I am still getting the dreaded “Incorrect function, try increasing max devices” error…
What Gives?
April 10th, 2007 at 12:12am
Not sure, I don’t have this problem. But a google leads to Berardi Michele who says that message indicates a hung improperly umounted device 0.
He says go to the command line and execute this to manually unmount it:
example:
filedisk /mount 0 b:\ext2imagename.img t:
to unmount it use the “U”mount command:
filedisk /umount t:
I also believe its never a good idea to use the A: or B: devices from the flyout menu even if they are offered, for one thing you might have some USB device masquerading as one of them, some BIOSes especially for laptops will autoswap or emulate them.
Just try to make sure you don’t choose a drive letter that you know is already in use.
Other than that your on your own, I make no claims of being an expert.
Good luck.
April 14th, 2007 at 12:14pm
how do you remove the software?
April 14th, 2007 at 2:48pm
Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs
Find and select “FileDisk ISO Mounter” and then click the “Change/Remove” button.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:09pm
Great package. Hard to find non-bloated apps like this these days.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:45am
[...] http://www.jeffothy.com/weblog/filedisk-iso-mounter/ [...]
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:09am
Cool stuff.
FileDisk ISO Mounter works with Win2K.
Little difficult to find – waded thru a lot of bloated ( 1 – 6 MB ) programs – masquerading as Freeware… which were either trialware, crippleware or flat out shareware.
And here we see the functionality of mounting an ISO handily done in less than 100KBs.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:52pm
I am having a problem trying to get this to work. I ran the installer(the 1.2.1 Version) but when I try to execute it on my workstation i get a message saying:
The system cannot find the path specified.
I have checked syntax and it is accurate.
September 6th, 2007 at 8:47am
lodeing the iso works fine but when i click on lets say install.exe it says
“a:install.exe
the specified path does exist”
does neone know whot has happend
September 9th, 2007 at 1:16pm
I installed the program and added the files to the DEP exceptions, and it worked great until I restarted my computer, after that the right click context menu option on iso files “Mount Via FileDisk” no longer appears. any ideas what it could be? otherwise thank you for a great program.
October 8th, 2007 at 5:15pm
Doesnt work Vista 64, I think because of the shell extension isnt 64 bits or not set in the registrys 64 bit section.
November 24th, 2007 at 5:10am
hi, thanks for the great tool. it works fine for me when i run it step by step. i mean first running install.cmd then filedisk.exe for mounting iso image. but when i create a batch file for running them all in one, it stops after running install.cmd and then the whole process terminates. how can i fix this problem ? thanks ahead.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:05pm
I got it basically working after reading about the DEP stuff — shouldn’t there be some instructions in the download?
Anyway, I can’t figure out how to unmount.
Also I don’t understand:
4.a. Right click on the file and hover over [ O Mount Via FileDisk ]
5.c. Select [ O Umount ]
What does “hover over” mean? I know no such Windows Explorer gesture and went I try to hover, nothing happens. When I right-click, I see Open With… FileDiskExt Shell Extension
That’s what permits me to mount the ISO. But I see nothing about unmounting.
Looks promising though — Vincent
December 12th, 2007 at 9:45pm
When I right-click on an ISO I don’t see “mount via FileDisk” or (when mounted) “unmount via FileDisk”. I see an Open With choice of FileDiskExt Shell Extension which I CAN use to mount the file. But I have no way to unmount it.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:56pm
Please let me know what permissions are needed to use the command line interface? I get “access denied’ with my normal users but my admin account works fine. Thanks.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:46am
It had to run as administrator which is quite disappointing. I figured out a way to make it work using runas.exe. A google dug up some pages on a vbs file that ended up using a bit of.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:20am
Does what it says on the tin, nice and light… like it lots! Any plans to support other file formats???
February 24th, 2008 at 2:07pm
Hi, it works great on Xp Home Sp2 Portuguese, tks, great work
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:08am
GgggreatTTTT!!!
From South Korea.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:13pm
You mentioned command line in your post. Is there a command line syntax for this, or is it GUI only?
Thanks.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:15pm
this is absolutely ridiculous, ive never seen anything this easy and accurate, its easy and gets everything done. its amazing… thanks so much man!
May 13th, 2008 at 2:12pm
Your program worked without a hitch. Thank you for writing it.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:41am
Works great on XP SP2 after following all directions from:
“John Said,
April 8th, 2007 @ 5:13 pm”
Fantastic!!! No problems now. what a great app. Thanks!!!!
March 1st, 2009 at 7:35am
is there anyway to run a iso mounter without admin rights? if so or you have any suggestions please email me at prometheusf1r3@gmail.com
March 9th, 2009 at 9:24am
Does not work when i mount a dvd iso.
In “My computer” the newly mounted disk is shown ok, but when i double click on it i get the following message:
“I:\ is not accessible.
The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.
”
Only after i right-click on the drive and select “Open” from the context menu, it opens the drive. From that moment i can double click on it from “My Computer” too.
I am on WinXP SP3
March 9th, 2009 at 9:26am
One more thing (see my previous post):
This weird behavior is only with DVD iso’s.
I did try many different (defintely) good valid DVD isos and it always (not)works the same way.
September 16th, 2009 at 6:51pm
Does not work, downloaded to vista, installed. There is no right click menu for my .IMA file anywhere.
September 20th, 2009 at 5:09am
Am i missing something here, will try it but have been using for a while now Winmount. That mounts many disks and container files etc.
Though i only come looking for a tool to partition and foramt, new vmdk disk files.