


Most operating systems (and many utilities) also allow you to mount an ISO image as a virtual disc, in which case all your apps treat it as if a real optical disc were inserted. The idea behind ISO images is that you can archive an exact digital copy of a disc, and then later use that image to burn a new disc that’s in turn an exact copy of the original. They are a sector-by-sector copy of the disc, and no compression is used.

You can think of an ISO image as a complete copy of everything stored on a physical optical disc like CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc-including the file system itself. The name ISO was taken from the name of the file system used by optical media, which is usually ISO 9660.
