Windows 7: Making .iso DVD that will *Autorun*

I should apologize in advance about whatever it is that I'm missing, but I'm about to pull my hair out. I'm not having trouble *burning* the downloaded Windows 7 iso file from Digital River to a DVD; that works just fine. My problem is getting it to run like an actual install disc. When I put the burned DVD in my optical drive, it just opens a window, and the following is shown:




I've used both the Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe and ISO Burner programs, and they both end up making a disc that simply shows a data file as shown above. (same with the older Nero version that is my default burning software). I'm running XP, so I'm aware that it has to be a clean install. I changed my boot sequence to look at the optical drive first. What am I doing wrong, here? What do I have to do to make the burned DVD work like an actual install disc? I thought it was just a matter of burning the iso file onto a DVD.

Thanks in Advance

Make bootable iso from student d/l

I always use ImgBurn which never fails. Choose Burn Img to Disk at 4x speed with Verify.

It will say "bootable" in the text given when you load the ISO into Imgburn, it if it is. Otherwise redownload the ISO or checksum it if available.

You can also unzip the files and run it from the XP desktop, to overwrite the XP with a windows.old folder saving all of your files. But it's a bit cleaner to boot the ISO and you should indeed be able to.

Thanks very much for the quick reply, gregrocker. I looked at this page earlier, and I guess I'm just misunderstanding some things. Since I already have all of the files in .iso form, I skipped to step 8 on the page you've posted. I just downloaded imgburn; where will it show "bootable" in the app's window? I chose "Write image file to disc", and I get the following:

I forget where it says bootable exactly but if you load the ISO using file folder links it will say bootable somewhere there, if it is.

Load the ISO and see.

Also set your Write speed to 4x instead of AWS.

I've loaded the ISO, and it definitely doesn't say "bootable" in any spot, so I don't really know what to do. Do I need to extract the ISO? When it goes onto a DVD, it's no longer supposed to show as an ISO, correct?

In IMGBurn select the folder icon next to source and point to the .iso file. An .iso if burned as an image will be bootable but not if just copied to the DVD.

If ImgBurn doesn't say bootable, or it won't boot when slow-burned, then it is somehow corrupted.

You can now either download it again,

or extract the ISO using 7zip, WinRAR, or PowerISO trial, then run it from the desktop,

or try reconstructing the ISO from files using the tutorial given earlier to see if it is bootable then.

I personally would first locate the download's checksum HASH so I could compare it after adding Hashtab to file properties tab. Checksum is the authority on ISO integrity.

First, do not format the dvd - if autoplay pops up, just close it.

Second , it should be burned as an image, not as data.

If you used iso-burner attched to the tutorial - the only thing it does is burn an image.

Here it is again:

isoburner.zip

Hope it helps.

Thanks to all of you for responses. Unfortunately, I've tried doing several burns with my remaining DVDRW's, so I've had to erase/reformat now that I have no more completely blank discs. I'm currently trying to burn the earlier-made .nrg file through imgburn. I'll download the isoburner again if this doesn't work.

Actually, there's something throwing me, here. Imgburn is currently "erasing disc", but the DVD drive isn't doing anything; the HDD is doing the work. Is it erasing an image on the hard drive? Also, a similar occurrence happened earlier through Nero; while recording any "image", it was only the HDD working, and not the blank media. I hope I'm making sense.