brent perhaps the VMware is throwing me off in regards to a good suggestion
This whole thread is confusing because of a misunderstanding of what an .ISO file is, and how it can be used. In the context that applies to us here, it represents an entire bootable file system that can be mounted. You can create an ISO file in a number of ways. I used to use a Windows program called ImgBurn to do it.
This definition and description is from the Library of Congress, and may be overkill in our case, but it's interesting.
Archive file containing the content from (or destined for) an optical disk, originally limited to data formatted to comply with the ISO 9660 standard (1988), hence the format name and the iso file extension. Beginning in the 1990s, the term ISO Disk Image File Format (or simply ISO image) has also been applied to data structured in terms of the Universal Disk Format (UDF) specification developed and maintained by the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA), standardized as ISO/IEC 13346 (1995 and 1999) and ECMA-167 (1997). UDF is used for computer data storage for a broad range of media, including DVDs and Blu-Ray disks, supplanting ISO 9660.
The ISO Disk Image File Format is typically used to package or bundle software, databases, authored DVD video programs, and the like. For example, most distributions of the open-source Linux operating system are distributed as ISO images of the installation media. Some independent filmmakers distribute their works (which may contain interactive elements) as downloadable ISO disk images to be consumed as if they were DVDs.
ISO image files, unlike normal files, are not opened but rather are mounted. ISO image files contain the data contents of every written sector of an optical disc, including the optical disc file system if one is present. Thus it is a media-independent version of a media-dependent format. However, for playback or exploitation of the content, the dependencies on players (including CD and DVD players), operating systems, rights-related technical protection systems, and other software remain, just as they do for the original (or to-be-produced) physical disk. For organizations seeking to preserve content, ISO Disk Image Format Files support the important goal of bit preservation but not long-term content management.
The term ISO Disk Image File Format is used to name a range of variants that are not governed by a single comprehensive specification. In addition to the ISO 9660 and UDF types identified above, the structure for an ISO disk image may employ extensions like the Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol, an IEEE standard that supports the preservation of POSIX (Unix-style) permissions and longer names; the Joliet filesystem specified by Microsoft that supports names stored in Unicode, thus allowing almost any character to be used, even from non-Latin scripts; El Torito, which enables CDs to be bootable on PCs; and Apple ISO 9660 Extensions, which add support for Mac-OS-specific file characteristics. Tools and operating systems offer varying support for these extensions; in some cases the media-independent entity may not be fully system independent. Comments welcome that clarify the impact of the use of these extensions on long-term data management.
