Into Windows

  • Home
  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10
  • Windows 7
  • Privacy
You are here: Home » Software » Fix: “The Selected File Is Not A Valid ISO File” Error In Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Fix: “The Selected File Is Not A Valid ISO File” Error In Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

Last Updated on August 25, 2020 by admin 105 Comments

RECOMMENDED: Download PC Repair tool to quickly find and fix Windows errors automatically
 

These days, a large number of PC users prefer installing Windows OS from a USB drive instead of a traditional DVD disc. Even though there are plenty of better tools out there like Rufus to create bootable USB from an ISO file, most PC users prefer using the official Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.

Selected File isn't ISO

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool sports an easy-to-use interface and is compatible with Windows 8/8.1 as well as the latest Windows 10 but at times when you open Windows ISO file by clicking the Browse button, the tool shows “The selected file is not a valid ISO file. Please select a valid ISO file and try again” error.

While I am no expert, the error occurs when the selected ISO file has only ISO9660 file system and missing UDF and Joliet. In order to fix this error, you need to rebuild the ISO file with ISO9660 + UDF + Joliet file system.

A quick Google search reveals that there are plenty of guides out there to fix this error but the catch is that all of them ask you to download PowerISO or UltraISO software. The real catch is that both UltraISO and PowerISO aren’t free and you need to purchase their licenses. And no, the trial software can’t handle large ISO files.

Users who want to fix “The selected file is not a valid ISO file. Please select a valid ISO file and try again” error with the help of free software can follow the given below instructions.

The selected file is not a valid ISO file

NOTE: These instructions work great on Windows 10 as well.

Method 1:

Step 1: Download the popular ImgBurn software from here and install the same on your PC. As some of you know, ImgBurn is free software and is compatible with all recent versions of Windows, both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

Step 2: Launch ImgBurn, click Create image file from files/folder. Drag and drop the ISO file to ImgBurn window to add it to the source list.

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step1

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step2

Step 3: Select a location to save the new ISO file by clicking the Browse button next to the Destination box.

Step 4: Click on the Options tab on the right-side pane of ImgBurn and select the file system as ISO9660 + Joliet + UDF from the drop-down menu.

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step3

Step 5: Finally, click the Build button (see picture) to begin saving the edited ISO file with the new file system. Click Yes button when you see the confirmation dialog and click Yes button again if you see confirm Volume Label dialog box, and finally, click OK button to begin saving the ISO file.

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step4

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step6

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step7

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step8

The Selected File is not a valid ISO file Step9

Once the job is done, you can run Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool again and browse to the newly created ISO file to prepare the bootable USB/DVD without any issues.

Method 2:

If “The selected file is not a valid ISO file. Please select a valid ISO file and try again” error is appearing even after following the workaround mentioned above, we suggest you go ahead and download the popular Rufus tool and then follow the simple instructions in how to install Windows 8.1 from bootable USB or how to create Windows 10 bootable USB guide to create the bootable media without any errors.

Filed Under: Software Tagged: Tips

Related Posts

  • How To Check If Windows 10 ISO File Is Bootable
  • How To Clean Install Windows 10 From ISO File (Without USB/DVD)
  • Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Is Now Windows USB/DVD Download Tool
  • How To Install Windows 8.1 From ISO File
  • How To Use Rufus To Download Windows 10 ISO
  • Generate And Download Unattend.XML Windows File Online

Comments

  1. Anabel says

    September 27, 2020 at 7:59 am

    It is not working with The Windows 10 LTSC DVD5 1809 – MSDN. FFS phucking DVD5….

  2. Sergio Ortiz says

    September 25, 2020 at 2:48 am

    Awesome, so helpful!! Thanks!

  3. Dimitris says

    May 20, 2020 at 12:00 am

    Great tutorial!thank you

  4. Pius oblie says

    August 15, 2019 at 5:36 pm

    Thanks man. May the Good Lord bless you with success in everything you do.

  5. Al Copone says

    September 3, 2018 at 11:39 am

    Thank you very much for sharing this brilliant method, now my ISO file is working… god bless you!!!!

  6. Dragon says

    June 29, 2018 at 8:47 am

    why does it says no files and folders added to the image?

  7. Wasiu says

    February 1, 2018 at 2:05 pm

    God bless you, it really helped my situation.

  8. Jack says

    January 25, 2018 at 2:08 am

    Thank you this really really helped

  9. Subodh says

    November 24, 2017 at 6:17 pm

    Yes, it works!

  10. Mirlind Bacaj says

    July 17, 2017 at 12:42 pm

    Thank you so much, helped me from a lot of struggle!

    Bless you!

  11. Silvannas McKenzie says

    June 1, 2017 at 8:17 pm

    Thank you very much. it worked

  12. Old hand says

    April 8, 2017 at 10:49 pm

    Wasted a blank DVD following these steps. It allowed me to write the file but did not create a bootable Windows disc

  13. Burt Ward says

    March 27, 2017 at 9:44 pm

    Thumbs up.

  14. Michael says

    January 26, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    Thank you very much it did work, you’re the best!

  15. Vaibhav Gupta says

    December 14, 2016 at 6:36 pm

    Thanks It works

  16. Scotty says

    November 5, 2016 at 2:38 am

    Brilliant, worked a treat mate – thanks very much!

  17. SS says

    November 3, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    Kingsley
    PRF
    john
    Trent

    +1

  18. Bali says

    October 28, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    Fantastic solution first one worked very well

  19. nayan says

    October 2, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    Thnx man… so comfortable

  20. Debo says

    September 7, 2016 at 11:36 pm

    This is one of the best solutions I have read this year. Thanks a million

  21. jamshid Roshan says

    August 4, 2016 at 5:16 am

    THAT’S EXCELLENT. THANKS BRO

  22. Seun says

    July 31, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    Absolutely amazing! You saved me today. Thank you o. Thank you so much

  23. Jim says

    June 27, 2016 at 3:35 am

    Worked perfectly. and iso to an iso is totally valid with this tool. AND it solved the original problem for me.

  24. Waris Hazim says

    June 27, 2016 at 2:22 am

    Fantastic. Worked like a charm. God Bless.

  25. Peter says

    June 24, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    You Burn an .iso into a .iso file ????
    Sorry this will not Work !!!

  26. Smil235i says

    June 13, 2016 at 5:45 pm

    Worked. All of you who say this is bogus are doing it wrong

  27. David Ching says

    March 23, 2016 at 12:58 am

    Like others, these instructions did not work for me. The MS utility finished successfully but did not result in a bootable USB key, since it only had only one .iso file on it.

    The post by DMan on October 5, 2014 at 9:55 pm, which uses ImgBurn to create a .iso from files (and not from a disc) worked great. The MS utility burned it successfully onto the USB device, which booted fine. Thanks DMan!

  28. bull*radar says

    March 16, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    This is bull. You get an ISO file which contains the original ISO. The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool will fail or simply copy the original ISO to the external media. Amazingly how many bogus/fake/stupid “replies”, kudos for that.

  29. Misfit says

    February 29, 2016 at 8:15 pm

    Amazing instructions! Not only did it work for me, The step by step pictures were awesome because I’ll admit I did get stuck for a minute, haha. Thank you again

  30. Gerd says

    February 21, 2016 at 11:46 pm

    Thanks a lot!

    Good solution with ImgBurn .

  31. MKJ says

    January 15, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    Thank You Sir
    It Worked Very Well
    Thanks

  32. Kingsley says

    January 15, 2016 at 7:42 am

    it worked, but i got an error at 99% creating bootable usb device.

  33. Craig Smith says

    December 23, 2015 at 2:43 am

    Thank you , thank you thank you. you have proved that all my experience in IT was just arrogance and I have forgotten to just observe

  34. SINGLE_KITTEN says

    November 23, 2015 at 9:36 pm

    This is WORK!!! Thanks for your comment.

  35. DBoon says

    November 4, 2015 at 8:47 pm

    Thanks. This worked. IDK about links to programs with viruses as I already had IMGBURN, so i can not speak to that. The main point in creating ISO to work with the usb tool is that you need to create it with ISO9660 + UDF + Joliet file – that was the key to getting it to work. Thanks again. D

  36. Tiffany says

    October 30, 2015 at 11:46 am

    works like a charm for me… huge thanks !!

  37. Ebonweaver says

    October 22, 2015 at 10:44 pm

    This is bogus information. As one would expect from the instructions, this makes an ISO that contains an ISO, which does not result in a USB drive that is bootable because it only contains the original ISO. The people saying this worked for them either posted that before they saw the resulting USB drive, or they’re fake posts.

  38. johndodd says

    October 9, 2015 at 7:09 am

    Thanks this worked for me.

  39. PRF says

    September 30, 2015 at 12:50 am

    The provided download websites are all infested with viruses and trojans –
    Trojan.Gen.2
    PUA.OpenCandy
    Also an attack by hsttight.s3.amazonaaws.com

  40. Mehreen says

    September 28, 2015 at 12:53 am

    Hello there. I had upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7. I had fun but the computer was slow so I wanted to shift back to Windows 7. I tried making a bootable USB device for Windows 7 from my current windows using Windows USB/DVD tool. But I encountered the same problem again and again that my Windows iso file is not valid. I was in a mess but thanks for your awesome tutorial, I got myself out of it and learnt a bit about this iso business. Wanted to say a huge thank you. Really.

    I will try to pay it forward like you did.

    Best.

    M

  41. john says

    September 27, 2015 at 10:44 pm

    Blocked about 4 trojans during installation…quality

  42. Srikanth says

    September 4, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    ImgBurn is a simple and cute tool.
    Thanks for the information.

  43. sean says

    September 3, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    Thank you very much, worked great.One thing I had to do was in restrictions, enable larger file size or something like that. But imgburn told me how to fix the issue. gotta love imgburn.

  44. Emre says

    August 15, 2015 at 3:58 pm

    Thank you!

  45. Trent says

    August 11, 2015 at 1:36 pm

    imgur works but get failure at 99%.

    Doesn’t work.

  46. Vikrant says

    July 4, 2015 at 9:01 am

    Thanks a lot. I followed the instructions and it did work.

  47. Fungai says

    June 24, 2015 at 4:07 pm

    Thank you so much, u saved my day

  48. Cindy says

    June 7, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    I can’t say anything except THANK YOU VERY MUCH! This is exactly what I’m looking for.. :)

  49. Brett says

    May 6, 2015 at 7:53 am

    Thank you so much! Well-explained and right on point. Appreciate you!

  50. lobolito says

    April 30, 2015 at 11:41 pm

    Perfect! Thx so much!

  51. Lisa says

    April 24, 2015 at 9:47 pm

    Thank you so very much!!! You are the best!

  52. John says

    April 5, 2015 at 11:13 pm

    thank you sooo much

  53. Aneta says

    April 2, 2015 at 1:42 am

    Thanks!! Worked for me

  54. vincent says

    March 26, 2015 at 2:41 pm

    this is awesome works great for me direct solution tnx

  55. Idriss says

    March 15, 2015 at 11:58 pm

    Worked for me THANKS A LOT !!!

  56. MLBC says

    March 15, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    Thanks, none of the guides I have been following bothered to mention this.

  57. Rebatchi Said says

    March 12, 2015 at 5:21 pm

    Honnestly , you are genius…… thank you verrrrrrrrrrrrrry match, it works
    je suis ravi, merci beaucoup mon ami ,, t’es génial…

  58. Francisco Soto says

    March 2, 2015 at 5:51 pm

    Nice!!! :D

    Thanks a lot!

    Best

  59. thunt says

    February 24, 2015 at 11:13 pm

    Thanks alot it worked

  60. BRUCE says

    February 10, 2015 at 3:26 pm

    It worked !! Thanks a lot.

  61. L. Pignon says

    February 6, 2015 at 5:09 pm

    Thank you very much. It worked perfectly!

  62. Angelos says

    February 4, 2015 at 7:07 pm

    Thank you very much. Worked perfectly. Only thing, ImgBurn automaticaly downloads 3-4 random programs

  63. Rafael says

    February 4, 2015 at 6:49 am

    Was able to rebuild the ISo and no longer get the error message, but the Windows tool cannot finish writing the bootable ISO. It gets to 99% and then stops and gives an error message. Any clues? Is the original ISO just faulty perhaps?

  64. Anonymous Windows User says

    January 9, 2015 at 11:57 pm

    This works like a charm BUT WHEN INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE, WATCH OUT FOR THE MALWARE! Just untick the boxes when the part of the setup comes up asking for an ‘accept’ or ‘decline’.

  65. Happy says

    December 31, 2014 at 6:32 pm

    Wow, what a fix. Thankyou

  66. BT says

    December 27, 2014 at 7:48 am

    I’ve never commented on help like this, you prevented me binning my brand new computer. I was at the point of absolute utter rage trying to get a USB Installer to work.

    Thank you so very much.

  67. Eddie says

    December 17, 2014 at 7:04 am

    thank you this helped me! i was getting really irritated

  68. Rubelio says

    December 16, 2014 at 9:16 pm

    Very nice, problem resolved. TKS

  69. Daniel says

    December 13, 2014 at 6:22 am

    Good job, very good

  70. prinand says

    November 28, 2014 at 12:31 pm

    <3 thanks man….. alot

  71. Ivan says

    November 23, 2014 at 10:39 pm

    Thank you.

  72. Victor z says

    November 4, 2014 at 12:25 am

    Thank you so much this is information has saved my day, my iso recreated successfully, no more worries, i owe you a glass of whatever you like most.

  73. Robert says

    November 3, 2014 at 3:15 pm

    Thank you very much!!!
    ISO9660 + UDF + Joliet is the answer.
    Well done!!!

  74. be.free says

    October 22, 2014 at 10:18 pm

    Readers beware of this download. With Imgburner comes Malware that tries to install itself automatically! Tuneup software and some other software called Linkey. I didn’t even give it a chance and uninstalled everythign immediately!

  75. ajmal says

    October 10, 2014 at 9:14 pm

    thank good workng

  76. Andy says

    October 9, 2014 at 12:42 am

    Thanks for your simple and efficient solution.

  77. DMan says

    October 5, 2014 at 9:55 pm

    The method did not work for me. After the modification to the ISO is completed and the Microsoft tool gets to about 90+% and then fails. I ended up using a modified version of the instructions above.

    The modification is that before clicking the “build” button I switched to “advanced input” by selecting the application icon just above the build icon and to the left of the 2 green arrows. Then I selected the large application icon in the “Source” box. This brings up a new dialog box. Select the “Computer” icon on the left. On the right select your DVD drive that has the Win7 DVD in it. The select “Add Selected”. Click the subsequent OK box that comes up. Then exit the “Disk Layout Editor”. Now that you are back at the main build window select the “Options” tab. Check all 3 “Includes”. Under the labels tab put in Win7 for all 3 label fields and then select “Synchronizsed Editing”. Under the “Bootable Disc” tab select “Make Image Bootable”. Then under “Extract Boot Image” select your DVD drive. Then click the blue disk icon. Say yes to the subsequent box. It will fill in all the necessary boot image fields. Then click build. Now use the Windows tool to make your bootable USB drive. Done!

  78. Russell says

    September 29, 2014 at 11:43 pm

    Thank you so much for the work-around. It did the job!

  79. didus says

    September 24, 2014 at 7:47 pm

    Thank you so very much! This needs to be top result on google for this problem!

  80. Bojan Šari? says

    September 15, 2014 at 12:06 am

    THANK YOU!!! Joliet …

  81. J says

    September 10, 2014 at 10:16 am

    Virus detected by Avast! in the download of “Imgburn”, use with caution!

  82. Ravi Joshi says

    August 25, 2014 at 12:53 am

    Gosh!. That’s amazing. You saved my day. Thanks !!!
    I will now regularly revisit your site for insights.

  83. Dan says

    August 16, 2014 at 10:35 pm

    This was amazingly helpful and succinct, thank you kindly!

  84. InR says

    August 14, 2014 at 2:48 am

    Nice only blog that helped me to third screen of win 7 download tool :)

    good job!

  85. Lee says

    August 3, 2014 at 12:37 am

    Nice job – Method 1 worked great for me!

  86. Hasham says

    July 24, 2014 at 8:19 pm

    Many thanks admin :) you saved my time….appreciated you work

  87. Dinesh Ramakrishnan says

    June 29, 2014 at 6:45 pm

    Hi admin, i cannot install imgburn as this software contain some malware like Malsign.Opencandy.7AF. I have tried officila mirror,filehippo and softpeida but all showing the same. This threat is detected by AVG

  88. Norbert says

    June 27, 2014 at 2:41 am

    I am so grateful. Thanks!

  89. Prolay Rudra Bhattacharjee says

    June 11, 2014 at 10:01 pm

    Thank you so much, I’m Original win 7 user and I’ve retail dvd of win 7 but my dvd writer is gone and i’m faced the same prob at the time of making iso from retail dvd, byt finnaly … it really works thanks a lot again/…

  90. Tapanesh Dash says

    June 7, 2014 at 8:46 pm

    Thank u so much…. It’s awesome ….. U r so cool :)

  91. Hein says

    June 4, 2014 at 1:05 am

    Thanks so much!!

    I was getting so frustrated with the damn USB tool. Tried Daemon Tools, Nero, Image burn etc and didnt know about the different sort of ISO configurations. Nothing worked!

    Finally get your fix and 10mins later W7 is on my USB ready for installation

    You’re a lifesaver!!

  92. Matt says

    May 27, 2014 at 10:26 pm

    Thank you so much! Life saver!

  93. Brian says

    May 25, 2014 at 12:33 am

    You rock sir! This helped me out more than I can explain quickly.

    Thanks!

  94. Anon A Moose says

    May 17, 2014 at 6:43 pm

    if you have the same issues as me and drkh with 99% error . check out the link below for finding the bootsec.exe file .

    Basically, just look inside the ISO file, and you will find it there. For some reason it needs to be added to the WUDT program folder.

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/where-to-find-dowload-for-bootsectexe/3561ddce-4847-4c33-864e-e6f5b47df009?rtAction=1400332086892

  95. Dan says

    May 1, 2014 at 10:48 pm

    Thanks a lot!

  96. drkh says

    April 15, 2014 at 9:31 am

    I would like make a correction of my last message.

    In my last message, “But I was wrong. WUDT could not complete its job, stopping at 99% as usual, although it did copy all the files” should be:

    “But I was wrong. WUDT refused to proceed, displaying the ‘Selected File Is Not A Valid ISO File’ error message.”

    “Stopping at 99%” is another problem with WUDT, which, in my case, can be solved by manually adding the ‘bootsect.exe’ file into the ‘boot’ folder in the ISO, as WUDT’s log indicates.

    WUDT’s log is the events.txt file in “%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Apps\Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool\Log”

  97. drkh says

    April 4, 2014 at 11:43 am

    When I used ImgBurn to re-build the ISO, not only I selected ISO9660 + UDF + Joliet for the file system as this tutorial instructs, but also selected 2. 01 for UDF because I thought 2.01 is the default UDF version that the Windows 7’s own Format tool adopts for DVD.

    But I was wrong. WUDT could not complete its job, stopping at 99% as usual, although it did copy all the files.

    So I changed the UDF version back to 1.02 which is the default of ImgBurn. This time WUDT finished the job.

  98. WuLi says

    March 22, 2014 at 7:12 am

    I dont usually post around on websites and forums but this was very helpfull
    Thank you i do apreciate it

  99. Justin says

    March 16, 2014 at 11:54 pm

    Thank you so much! This worked perfectly. I tried the isoavdpcopy tool so many times without any success but this worked. Thanks again!!!

  100. Bryan says

    March 14, 2014 at 9:53 pm

    Thanks a lot! It solved my problems, I was worried about having to download another ISO file, but this solved the problem prefectly

  101. Anonymous says

    March 1, 2014 at 12:08 am

    Thanks for the useful tip n tutorial, really appreciate your help and also kudos to you for giving an intro to the best free-ware for editing the image (.iso) properties. This really did solve the ‘not a valid iso error’. Better than using poweriso (shareware) since imgBurn is free and does the job perfectly.

  102. nil says

    February 28, 2014 at 2:05 am

    Thank you. Worked perfectly.

  103. admin says

    February 17, 2014 at 9:53 am

    Glad to know that my guide helped you. Thanks for your comment.

  104. Adam says

    February 12, 2014 at 10:23 pm

    Thank you for this article. All the other ones wanted me to use the PowerISO or UltraISO and I had no desire to pay for a one time use program. This method worked and cost me no extra money.

  105. Tamil says

    January 23, 2014 at 9:33 pm

    Thanks for Imgburn. Really it helped me alot. I dont to express it in my words. Thanks alot.
    People use it and get rid of your problem with Windows 7 DVD/USB tool problem.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisements

Search Into Windows

Recent posts

  • How To Automatically Delete Old Files From Recycle Bin In Windows 10/11
  • 3 Ways To Disable Automatic Driver Updates In Windows 11
  • How To Restore Personal Folders (Downloads & Documents) To Default Locations In Windows 10/11
  • How To Make Bing Search Default In Microsoft Edge
  • How To Hide Edge Sidebar On Windows 10/11 PC & Mac
  • How To Change Mouse Cursor/Pointer Color In Windows 10/11
  • How To Make Mouse Cursor/Pointer Bigger In Windows 10/11
  • What Is Windows 11 Moment 1 Update?
  • How To Upgrade To Windows 11 22H2
  • How To Install Gmail In Windows 10/11

About us

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Into Windows