What is an .iso file and how can it be used for genealogy?

I don't presume to be an expert around computers but I do like to educate myself and learn when I am challenged.  This happened to me over the past week when my 2010 MacBook Pro started to have real problems when my available space dropped to less than 40gb out of a 500gb drive.

Updated, a few people have asked for complete instructions so I have added them, scroll straight to the bottom.



Doing some sleuthing I discovered that every time I opened up a backup of FTM3 it re-created media files, which were never discovered when checking my duplicates because it would not re-create them in the naming pattern I used but one THEY used; for example

• I use: B-LUCAS, Rhondalee - 1965 NSW Birth Certificate No ??
• They use: BLUCAS Rhondalee 1965 NSW Birth Certificate No (They would lose the number)

This is quiet bothersome as I like to keep check on duplicate files to save space.  I also wanted to upgrade to El Capitan and I really wanted to do a clean install, so I ensured I had a good Time Machine backup and reformatted my drive.  All was perfect, of course it was fresh! The problems started as I was putting programs back on.

Anyway a long story short, I had Parallels running for Windows 7, of course I needed to upgrade that for El Capitan. I am tired of paying out money on yearly updates, and quiet frankly since I left work money is not to be wasted so I educated myself.

VirtualBox was the winner, Windows is running beautifully inside and it didn't cost me a dime.  Now the problem, my old, very old Rookwood Cemeteries CD wouldn't run, it was a DOS system, more education.  I could use Ingrams BDM Data Viewer (again money), easy, but not free.  

I discovered I could make an .iso file, I knew that an iso file was a complete image of a CD/DVD, but how could I use that to my advantage?  With the Rookwood CD you need to have it in your computer to work.  Aha! I discovered that if I create an iso of the disk and leave it on my computer and mount it when I need to use it all would be perfect.  I then found this fantastic program called Gizmo which creates the iso and then mounts the iso, easy peasy!

The iso file is found in Documents/Gizmo/Images, oh yeah, see the other two I got working?  Happy!

Here the drive is actually mounted, but you right click > mount and then run the program, walla!  Happy Searching!

I have been without this beautiful CD for at least 5 years since converting to Mac so maybe you can appreciate how very, VERY excited this made me!  If I can be of help, post a comment, hint .iso is now stored on my Google drive.

Note better, this is actually installed on a Windows Emulator on my Mac so will work on any Windows machine.

Instructions:

Testing with NSW Pioneer disk.

Download Gizmo

http://loganmueller.info/gizmo/download.html

Install

It creates a Directory on your C drive under Documents called Gizmo, image (ISO( files are stored inside the “images” folder.

Double click and Run Gizmo, it brings up a Gizmo Toolbar click on Gizmo Manager, on the Start Page click on “Create ISO from disc, pop your disk into your drive, alter the Image file name if you wish, click create, leave the Eject the disk ticked.

Go to Gizmo’s “images” folder and right click the ISO and mount, make a note of the Drive it mounts to, in my case it mounted to J.  Note you can do this from the Gizmo Window, but you should learn where your ISO’s are kept.

Switch to your KAWAREN folder on your C Drive and look for the program to install, in this sample case it’s “NSWPI” double click and run, in the setup screen set your drive as C and set your CD Drive as the drive letter you mounted it to: in this case J.

It’s done!  While you are there, why not right click NSWPI and send a shortcut to the desktop?

Test it, double click NSWPI and it should be working, have fun!

You can do this with ANY program.  The trick is to remember to mount it before running the program.  I have mine set so they automatically mount when I start Windows.

I hope that is clearer.