This is by no means intended as a comprehensive tutorial or guide on CD images. It is intended merely to point you in the right direction toward obtaining the appropriate application to handle or burn the cd-image file you may have downloaded.

Often cd-images are uploaded to groups which are not intended for them, such as the alt.binaries.warez* groups. By and large, these are all "rip" groups, intended for small utilities or "rips" from cd-images, and people in these groups may not be familiar with the file-types of cd-images; or know which applications are needed to deal with them. This page is intended as a guide to give people a running-start on getting into cd-images, not as a replacement for the manual for the burning program, nor for the cd-image FAQ (which you can jump to from the opening page of this WarezFAQ, <here>.)

First you need to know what type of file you have downloaded, based upon the extension:

1. BIN and it's accompanying CUE is an image file in the format established by CDRWin, and which is also handled by FireBurner, Nero, and Alcohol120%. There may be other programs with the ability to burn a BIN, but those are the main ones. The CUE is a text file (editable with any editor, such as Notepad) which tells the burning program where the BIN is, what it's name is, and any other special instructions needed. Multi-mode CD's can have complex layouts, all "cued" by the CUE-file. The CUE is always necessary to burn a BIN, but if missing, it's not usually too hard to make one. Clear instructions on how to do that are in the CDRWin help file, in fact. A tool that will show you the track layout and other details in the BIN can be very handy- CDMage (Q.V.) is just such a tool, there are others,  such as WinISO, ISOBuster, et al.

2. IMG and accompanying files is a Clone-CD image file. It is essentially identical to the BIN file type, and will often have an accompanying CUE.

3. ISO is the standard image file, and which has lent it's name to all image files as a class. ISO is from the International Standards Organization and represents document #9660 which sets out the standards for a CD file system and track layout. ISO-9660 files can be burned by virtually every image-burning program on the market.

4. CIF is a proprietary format used by Roxio's (formerly Adaptec's) Easy CD Creator. It should never be posted to UseNet, but some posters are ignorant or insensitive and will force the downloader to get the particular program that the poster happens to prefer. CIF is handled by EZCD and by Alcohol.

5. NRG is a proprietary format used by Nero. The comments for CIF also apply to NRG. NRG can be burned by Nero and by Alcohol.  

6. CDR is said to be used by a German CDRWin knock-off. To be avoided.

7. CDI is a Disk Juggler file format, which can also be burned by Alcohol.

8. BWT is a BlindWrite (BlindRead) format, which is also burned by Alcohol.

9. MDS is Alcohol's own proprietary file image format.

These are the most common image-file formats. As you can see, only three have met with any wide acceptance, and of those only two are standardized to any degree: ISO and BIN. Those two are the formats which are handled by the widest number of burning programs, with ISO being handled by all general image burning programs. across all platforms.

Second you need to know the proper tools to burn these images--  Alcohol 120%. Using it is simplicity itself. If you have any of the other programs, such as Nero, you can still burn most of the common image formats. Read the manual or help-file that came with your burning program to determine if it can handle the image file-type you have just downloaded. That data changes too often to be kept in the WarezFAQ, hence the recommendation to just get Alcohol, as it handles the greatest number of image-file types, and is extraordinarily easy to use despite its power. Regardless, you must tell the program that you are creating a disk from an image-file, otherwise it will attempt to burn it as data, and you will end-up with a cd burned with one big ISO or BIN file on it. Programs which don't do data at all, but only images, won't make that mistake, and are easier to use for image burning. The all-purpose programs such as Nero, EZCD, DiskJuggler, et. al., are the ones which are prone to creating worthless CDs from image files.

Third- you need to know about programs that can read and/or extract from image files so that you don't have to burn them at all in order to use them.

Reading CD-Image files:

There are a few programs than can do that for several image file types: CDMage is a freeware application at http://cdmage.cjb.net/  As there are some questions about the "Gator" plug-in at that site, the last release of CDMage, v1.01.5, is available for direct download on the Downloads page of the WarezFAQ. Just unzip it where you want it, there is no installation. Once run it creates an .ini file in its directory. You have some configuration options you can set, such as the "home" directory (where should it look first for images,) etc.

WinISO is another program capable of reading from most image-file formats. It has additional capabilities over CDMage, in that it can also write to the image file, altering it or even creating one.  WinISO is available from the developers at http://www.winiso.com/ as shareware. Unlike CDMage, which is no longer being developed, WinISO is maintained by its developers.

ISOBuster is another program that is extremely capable in these matters. It is donation-ware, and is widely used and recommended by many knowledgeable UseNet denizens. http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/ for info and downloads.

WinImage is another program that can be used for some image types. http://www.winimage.com/ is the homepage for it.

Mounting CD-Image files:

There are a number of other programs which do much the same things, and others which do it a bit differently. Nero and Alcohol, for example, both allow you to create a "virtual" CD or DVD and "mount" the images- allowing you to read from them as though they were burned disks. Most programs that are in image files can be run, and installed, in this manner.

As the "mounting" program can only do that for the image types with which it is familiar, once again Alcohol is by far the most competent of the named applications in that regard- being able to mount virtually any type of CD or DVD image-file.