Burning ISO Images

After downloading the ISO file, verify its integrity by checking the Md5 sum. The file may have been corrupted during the download process so do this before burning the ISO. You can use md5sum to check that the iso file you are using is correct. Modem connections tend to be interrupted when downloading large files. Try to use a download manager if you can so if the download gets interrupted you can resume the download later.

One of the most common mistakes new users of Linux make is improperly burning iso images. Just burning the file on CD media as a data file does not properly set up the disk or make the disk bootable (which is what you want to do). Do not simply burn the ISO as a data CD. You must burn it as an ISO image, which means useing software that has that specific function.

Another, less often seen, mistake is to extract the iso files to a hard drive, or extract the image to a directory using a utility like isobuster, then attempt to burn the directories and files to a CD. This will not work. Also, just putting the ISO files on a hard drive does not make them bootable or usable.

The quality of the media used to burn the iso image onto will determine the resulting quality and usability of the burnt disk. Therefore, use high quality CD/DVD media. Make sure that the media is compatible with the drive in terms of speed and type.

Microsoft Windows users may use the Nero software if it is installed already. In order to burn an iso image the burning software must be instructed to use the "burn iso image" function. For example, in Nero, go to the File menu and select the "burn image" option, not "burn bootable image".

The software that you are using to burn the iso file determines how the iso files are burnt to a CD. Burn images at a low speed. A low burn speed is best since it will increase the probability of achieving a bootable disc. Images are not burnt correctly at too high speed. Set the burning speed of your software accordingly.

Do not use the burner software that comes with Microsoft Windows. The Windows program only produces a data disc, which is not what you want.

Highly recommended, free burning software are BurnCDCC and CDBurnerXP∞.

BurnCDCC consists of one file only (and requires no installation) and is designed to burn ISO images exclusively, which is excellent for newcomers. Whereas CDBurnerXP comes fully-loaded and requires to be installed to Microsoft Windows. Both programs can be reliably used to burn an ISO file to a CD/DVD.

• Video - How to burn using BurnCDCC∞

Users of a Linux distribution other than Puppy may burn ISO images useing K3b∞. It automatically performs the md5sum verification and is included in Linux distributions that use the KDE desktop. If you are using Puppy then you will use Burniso2cd.

Usually there are no problems burning CD-RW discs and then booting them from the same CD-RW drive that they were burnt on. However, older CD-ROM, not CD-RW, drives often have incompatability issues with CD-RW media burned on newer CD-RW drives.

The most frequently seen problem is burning the CD media on a newer CD-RW drive, then attempting to boot or use the burnt CD-RW disc on an old CD-ROM drive. Always attempt to boot the burnt disc with the same CD-RW drive that was used to burn the images with.

Older CD drives are more likely to be able to read/boot CD-R than CD-RW discs. Some older computers/drives cannot boot multi-session discs, but will boot ordinary single-session disks.

Related topic:

How to Create a Puppy Linux LiveCD/DVD

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