How to Burn ISO Files in Windows Media Player

By Andrew Mikael

i dvd image by dinostock from Fotolia.com

ISO image files re-create physical disks in digital form for backup or digital transfer, and allow you to store a music CD or video disc on a hard drive. By default, Windows Media Player can only interact with optical discs in physical drives, and cannot open or burn data from an ISO image file. If you mount the ISO in a virtual drive, Windows Media Player treats the disk like a physical CD or DVD and allows you to burn new discs from the information on the ISO.

Install a virtual drive on your system. Several programs available for free download add virtual drives to your computer. These include Alchohol 120%, Daemon-Tools Lite and Virtual CloneDrive, which have free trial versions (see "Resources"). Download the installation files and open them to install the software.

Open the virtual drive software. Right-click on the program's icon in the task bar and select the "Mount" or "Mount Image" option for the virtual drive. Navigate to the ISO file on your hard drive to mount the file. Windows treats the image as if a physical disc has been inserted. If an Autoplay window appears, close it.

Insert a blank CD or DVD into the computer's rewritable disc drive.

Open Windows Media Player and click on the "Rip" tab. Select the ISO image from the list of drives in the left frame.

Place a check mark next to each song, video or piece of media you wish to burn, then click the "Start Rip" button. Wait for the process to finish. Since Windows Media Player cannot burn media directly from another disc, you must first extract the media from the ISO.

Click the "Burn" tab. Navigate the Media Player library in the left frame and drag the ripped contents to the burn list on the right. When the list is ready, click "Start Burn" and wait for the process to finish.

References

Warnings

Writer Bio