How to Burn a CD Image to a Flash Drive

By Joanne Cichetti

A number of laptop computers come without optical drives. One option for such computers is to use an external USB optical drive. Another option is to use another computer to burn the CD image onto a flash drive. That way, you can enjoy the CD's contents on the flash drive without noticing any difference. There are a number of free applications that let you burn CD images onto USB flash drives.

Step 1

Download an application that burns the exact image of your CD contents. You have various options like MagicDisk, MagicISO or ISODisk. The image files created by these programs can then be copied to a flash drive.

Step 2

Insert the CD into the computer's optical drive and launch the application you installed in Step 1.

Step 3

Click on "Create ISO image from CD-ROM"/"Create ISO."

Step 4

Select the CD from the drop-down list and proceed. As the application works on copying, you will see a green progress bar. Wait for the ISO image to be created.

Step 5

Plug in your USB flash drive. Copy the CD image you created and paste it into the USB flash drive.

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