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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anabel says
It is not working with The Windows 10 LTSC DVD5 1809 – MSDN. FFS phucking DVD5….
Sergio Ortiz says
Awesome, so helpful!! Thanks!
Dimitris says
Great tutorial!thank you
Pius oblie says
Thanks man. May the Good Lord bless you with success in everything you do.
Al Copone says
Thank you very much for sharing this brilliant method, now my ISO file is working… god bless you!!!!
Dragon says
why does it says no files and folders added to the image?
Wasiu says
God bless you, it really helped my situation.
Jack says
Thank you this really really helped
Subodh says
Yes, it works!
Mirlind Bacaj says
Thank you so much, helped me from a lot of struggle!
Bless you!
Silvannas McKenzie says
Thank you very much. it worked
Old hand says
Wasted a blank DVD following these steps. It allowed me to write the file but did not create a bootable Windows disc
Burt Ward says
Thumbs up.
Michael says
Thank you very much it did work, you’re the best!
Vaibhav Gupta says
Thanks It works
Scotty says
Brilliant, worked a treat mate – thanks very much!
SS says
Kingsley
PRF
john
Trent
+1
Bali says
Fantastic solution first one worked very well
nayan says
Thnx man… so comfortable
Debo says
This is one of the best solutions I have read this year. Thanks a million
jamshid Roshan says
THAT’S EXCELLENT. THANKS BRO
Seun says
Absolutely amazing! You saved me today. Thank you o. Thank you so much
Jim says
Worked perfectly. and iso to an iso is totally valid with this tool. AND it solved the original problem for me.
Waris Hazim says
Fantastic. Worked like a charm. God Bless.
Peter says
You Burn an .iso into a .iso file ????
Sorry this will not Work !!!
Smil235i says
Worked. All of you who say this is bogus are doing it wrong
David Ching says
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!
bull*radar says
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.
Misfit says
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
Gerd says
Thanks a lot!
Good solution with ImgBurn .
MKJ says
Thank You Sir
It Worked Very Well
Thanks
Kingsley says
it worked, but i got an error at 99% creating bootable usb device.
Craig Smith says
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
SINGLE_KITTEN says
This is WORK!!! Thanks for your comment.
DBoon says
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
Tiffany says
works like a charm for me… huge thanks !!
Ebonweaver says
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.
johndodd says
Thanks this worked for me.
PRF says
The provided download websites are all infested with viruses and trojans –
Trojan.Gen.2
PUA.OpenCandy
Also an attack by hsttight.s3.amazonaaws.com
Mehreen says
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
john says
Blocked about 4 trojans during installation…quality
Srikanth says
ImgBurn is a simple and cute tool.
Thanks for the information.
sean says
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.
Emre says
Thank you!
Trent says
imgur works but get failure at 99%.
Doesn’t work.
Vikrant says
Thanks a lot. I followed the instructions and it did work.
Fungai says
Thank you so much, u saved my day
Cindy says
I can’t say anything except THANK YOU VERY MUCH! This is exactly what I’m looking for.. :)
Brett says
Thank you so much! Well-explained and right on point. Appreciate you!
lobolito says
Perfect! Thx so much!
Lisa says
Thank you so very much!!! You are the best!
John says
thank you sooo much
Aneta says
Thanks!! Worked for me
vincent says
this is awesome works great for me direct solution tnx
Idriss says
Worked for me THANKS A LOT !!!
MLBC says
Thanks, none of the guides I have been following bothered to mention this.
Rebatchi Said says
Honnestly , you are genius…… thank you verrrrrrrrrrrrrry match, it works
je suis ravi, merci beaucoup mon ami ,, t’es génial…
Francisco Soto says
Nice!!! :D
Thanks a lot!
Best
thunt says
Thanks alot it worked
BRUCE says
It worked !! Thanks a lot.
L. Pignon says
Thank you very much. It worked perfectly!
Angelos says
Thank you very much. Worked perfectly. Only thing, ImgBurn automaticaly downloads 3-4 random programs
Rafael says
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?
Anonymous Windows User says
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’.
Happy says
Wow, what a fix. Thankyou
BT says
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.
Eddie says
thank you this helped me! i was getting really irritated
Rubelio says
Very nice, problem resolved. TKS
Daniel says
Good job, very good
prinand says
<3 thanks man….. alot
Ivan says
Thank you.
Victor z says
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.
Robert says
Thank you very much!!!
ISO9660 + UDF + Joliet is the answer.
Well done!!!
be.free says
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!
ajmal says
thank good workng
Andy says
Thanks for your simple and efficient solution.
DMan says
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!
Russell says
Thank you so much for the work-around. It did the job!
didus says
Thank you so very much! This needs to be top result on google for this problem!
Bojan Šari? says
THANK YOU!!! Joliet …
J says
Virus detected by Avast! in the download of “Imgburn”, use with caution!
Ravi Joshi says
Gosh!. That’s amazing. You saved my day. Thanks !!!
I will now regularly revisit your site for insights.
Dan says
This was amazingly helpful and succinct, thank you kindly!
InR says
Nice only blog that helped me to third screen of win 7 download tool :)
good job!
Lee says
Nice job – Method 1 worked great for me!
Hasham says
Many thanks admin :) you saved my time….appreciated you work
Dinesh Ramakrishnan says
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
Norbert says
I am so grateful. Thanks!
Prolay Rudra Bhattacharjee says
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/…
Tapanesh Dash says
Thank u so much…. It’s awesome ….. U r so cool :)
Hein says
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!!
Matt says
Thank you so much! Life saver!
Brian says
You rock sir! This helped me out more than I can explain quickly.
Thanks!
Anon A Moose says
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
Dan says
Thanks a lot!
drkh says
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”
drkh says
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.
WuLi says
I dont usually post around on websites and forums but this was very helpfull
Thank you i do apreciate it
Justin says
Thank you so much! This worked perfectly. I tried the isoavdpcopy tool so many times without any success but this worked. Thanks again!!!
Bryan says
Thanks a lot! It solved my problems, I was worried about having to download another ISO file, but this solved the problem prefectly
Anonymous says
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.
nil says
Thank you. Worked perfectly.
admin says
Glad to know that my guide helped you. Thanks for your comment.
Adam says
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.
Tamil says
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.