How to Edit the Contents of an ISO Disk Image in Ubuntu?

As many knows already, you don't need any other application other than an archive manager if all you want is to view the contents (+ even changing the contents) of an ISO disk image file. But if you want more than that, such as mounting the content or changing it without loosing the boot-able core files (if any) then you will have to use a dedicate tool nonetheless.

And when concerning the contents of an ISO file that holds an operating system for instance then yes, you can still use an archive manager to add/delete files from it ... but if you do so, them most of the time after doing your changes, you'll have an un-bootable ISO disk image.

The reason is simple. An archive manager is simply an archive manager thus (most of the time) it won't be able to edit the content without destroying the "Boot Record" portion that includes all the information needed for making it boot-able.

In that case, if you happened to use Ubuntu ;-), then there's an excellent Utility called "ISO Master" that lets you do exactly that.

Welcome to the master of the "ISO", kiyahooooooooooooo! ;)

Main features...

*. Add/Edit/Rename and delete the contents of an ISO file.

*. Only supports the ISO disk image extension (although you can read other extensions such as NRG and MDF, more later).

*. Has the ability to view certain types of files such as HTML and Text related ones.

*. Extract the contents (since a disk image is a sort of an archive). 

*. Save/Delete or manually change the Boot-record according to your own preferences... are it's main features.

You can install IsoMaster in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install isomaster

Remember if you want to view some of the contents of the disk image file, say a configuration file or a Text file for instance. Then if you use a desktop other than Xfce, then make sure to go to its "Options" window and change the "viewer" command to "gedit" if you use Gnome classic desktop or with whatever your preferred editors name.

By default it uses the Editor "mousepad" (Xfce's text editor). But I replaced with my own...

Another thing, ISO Master also supports reading ISO, NRG and MDF files as well. But it can only save files the .iso format only.

Anyhow, if you want to create a bootable ISO disk image (CD/DVD, etc) file using files in your HDD from scratch or modify the content of an existing disk image (without destroying its core-properties such as above mentioned boot-entries) then ISO Master is certainly one of the best without a doubt. It's also free and even supports MS Windows too (Windows version is not free though :/).