Take the 2-minute tour ×

Is there some way to natively create a .iso file from a partition or directory via Windows CMD? From what I gather the answer is no, but coming from Linux, where dd accomplishes this so easily, it seems like there must be a way?

Maybe somehow piping robocopy or xcopy to a file or something?

Certainly there are third-party solutions, but I'm just asking about doing this out-of-the-box.

share|improve this question
Not natively, though Windows 7 can burn ISO files from Explorer. You might want to look at mkisofs for Windows which is in the Cdrtools package (needs Cygwin). –  Andrew Lambert Feb 12 '12 at 8:06
(Your avatar—especially the small version—looks too much like goaste.) :-o –  Synetech Feb 13 '12 at 3:52

2 Answers 2

up vote 3 down vote accepted

I prefer the Microsoft’s own “CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility”, CDImage. It allows for fairly complete control over the options, including making the disc bootable, and it is easy to use.

CDImage is not an officially released program (ie, not on Microsoft Downloads), but it is easy to find it, as well as some front-ends for it—which often come with a copy of CDImage.

I also made myself a couple of batch files called makecd.bat and makedvd.bat with the appropriate switches to simplify it even further for the more common images I make:

> CD  Switches: -l<LABEL> -h -j1 -x -m <TARGET>
> DVD Switches: -l<LABEL> -h -u1       <TARGET>
share|improve this answer
What the hell is wrong with hit-and-run down-voters. I have no clue what the problem is, so unless they leave a comment explaining why a perfectly valid answer to the question is not good, then I will continue to assume that it is correct and not bother to change it. –  Synetech Feb 12 '12 at 6:44
Thanks! I was unaware of CDImage, and it looks like it do nicely. –  Michael Feb 13 '12 at 3:06

Windows (so far, as of Win7) does not have a system for natively handling the ISO format. You will need a third party utility.

Windows 8 will be adding the ability to natively mount existing ISO files, but I'm not sure if there will be a creation native utility.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer


