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I want to add a new permanent virtual CD/DVD drive on Windows 10 to mount an .iso image in it. It should work without using third-party software like PowerISO, WinCDEmu, or Daemon Tools Lite.

My built-in CD drive does not function properly and I need to mount the .iso image for booting, to test the .iso file.

Is this possible in Windows 10?

Daniel B
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Arjun Singh
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    You need third-party software to do that. If you explain why you don’t want that, we can help find a solution. – Daniel B Apr 04 '20 at 13:12
  • @DanielB No you don't. – DavidPostill Apr 04 '20 at 13:12
  • [How to mount or unmount ISO images on Windows 10 | Windows Central](https://www.windowscentral.com/how-mount-or-unmount-iso-images-windows-10) – DavidPostill Apr 04 '20 at 13:13
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    Right click ISO, select Mount, easy peasy. But may not be permanent across reboots, don't know. – Moab Apr 04 '20 at 13:16
  • @DanielB Why? because it is off topic here to ask for 3rd party software. – Moab Apr 04 '20 at 13:17
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    You can answer but should be a comment here at SU. There is a proper site for this type of question-answer>>>>https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ – Moab Apr 04 '20 at 14:54
  • @CliffArmstrong - If the question is clear enough to be migrated it will be migrated. If the question is low quality and cannot be migrated to the proper community it will be closed. Comments that contain even mask (partial) vulgarity will be reported. There is no other way to take those two characters is civil discourse. – Ramhound Apr 04 '20 at 16:24
  • I seriously think you guys need to re-read the question. There's no request for software recommendations here. There's a problem and a request to solve that problem. Such a question does not belong on softwarerecs. And, if the op hadn't explicitly excluded third party solutions, it would be perfectly on topic to suggest daemon tools or alcohol 52% in an answer. It's an unreasonable burden to expect question askers to know the correct site for their question based on answers they haven't been given yet. – Cliff Armstrong Apr 04 '20 at 16:44
  • my in-built cd drive does not function properly and i need to mount iso image for boot from virtual drive to test the iso file. – Arjun Singh Apr 04 '20 at 17:02
  • @ArjunSingh - None; Of the third-party solution software support that feature not does the built-in feature of Windows 8+; had you mentioned that from the start, you would gotten an answer much faster – Ramhound Apr 04 '20 at 21:28
  • @Cliff - I agree this question should not be migrated to another community – Ramhound Apr 04 '20 at 21:28

3 Answers3

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You indicate that you want to test booting from the .iso image. This is not possible because a virtual optical drive will not exist (yet) when the PC is booting. Emulating an optical drive on bare metal is only possible when the software that is booting (like Windows or Linux) explicitly supports this.

Instead, you can use a virtual machine to test the .iso image. One such virtual machine software is VirtualBox. It is free and open source.

After starting VirtualBox, create a new virtual machine (with or without virtual hard disk, as required). After creating the VM, you can open its properties and place the .iso image in its virtual optical drive. When you then power on the VM, it will boot like a normal PC.

Using a VM will allow you to test the boot process without having to restart your PC.

Daniel B
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  • I agreed with your answer that a virutal cd drive cant be used to boot my main host machine but If I need a virtual cd drive to boot my guest machine then ?? also I know that virtual box can directly boot iso image. – Arjun Singh Apr 05 '20 at 10:32
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    You don’t need an _additional_ virtual optical drive for the guest. The virtualization software already has one built-in. – Daniel B Apr 05 '20 at 15:09
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You may want to live test an operating system. it is not possible to do so, utilizing the method you describe. Booting to an .ISO image takes place in a separate environment other than Windows ( before Windows loads ). Your best option, is to create a virtual machine inside Windows and test the .iso there. You can do it without the need of using 3rd party tools through Windows Hyper-V Here is a guide from Microsoft on how to do it in Windows 10

Should add, many OS distros allow you to live test the OS if your burn the image to an USB device. Linux distros and its variants are a good example of this

Lucky8
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NO, but probably YES if you want to do it the hard way:

Using software makes it easy to achieve but I think it's also possible using Windows' built-in command line tools. This is in no way related to mounting an image in Windows (which is integrated without using third-party tools), but only to boot your PC from an ISO (or VHD) file.

For others interested in using third-party software, this might be useful:

FifthAxiom
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  • While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference. Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1130135) – Dave M Jun 18 '22 at 11:49