Hi everyone

Hope I'm not intruding or posting this in the wrong section. Could you please help me with this question? I am trying to reduce the size of this software iso from 5 GB to around 4 GB or less so it will fit on a standard data dvd but i am not sure how to do so using Winrar. After compressing at best, it still seems to too large to fit, yet I've seen so many Audioz posts where a 500 mb rar unpacks to over 1.5 gigs.

Can you please advise on how or what I can do to achieve a higher level of compression for my iso?
Thank you very much for your help. Your advice is much appreciated.
Best regards!

 

Sorry to break it to you, but if it can't fit - it can't fit. Your ISO must be only lightly compressible data like videos or samples, especially videos and samples that are already compressed [MP4, FLAC, MP3] can't be compressed much further no matter what archiver format or level of compression you use. Also, you can use the "split" option to split the archive into 400MB parts so you can fit it onto DVDs more easily.

 

What SineWave suggested is generally correct for media content but usually a software application which is distributed in .ISO will compress quite well as RAR etc.
Even a little more compression can be achieved by extracting the contents of the ISO, then perform RAR on the contents.

WinRAR can unwrap ISO files:
Menu: Options > Settings > Integration tab - Associate with ISO.

Have a inside the ISO and you should see a setup or install exe file and complete folder structure for the app.
Extract the contents to a temporary hard-drive location, then perform RAR on that.
When you want to install the app, unRAR the contents then run the install/setup directly.

NOTE: it is rare that some applications need to be installed from the original mounted / intact ISO. Especially when the install files are spanned of multiple parts. In that case it's better to leave the ISO files as they are and store them on a DVD-ROM.

Hope this help.

 

The two ways are wort a try, there could be lots of wav files on the iso
what could be packed better unpacked from the iso and in a rar,
or just rar the iso like this
split to volumes,size / 2.5 GB / Add recover record 5% or 10 % and compression method /store
then burn two copys = 4 dvds as a safe back up

 

KGB archiver......
FreeARC........
NanoZip.....

 

A standard data DVD is supposed to hold 4.7gb although the most I've had success with is 4.33gb(Uncompressed). However, try this it should do what you want.

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-compressiso.htm

 

7zip or WinUHA can achieve pretty great results when it comes to compression. I'd go for a cheap 8 GB USB flash drive or a Dual-Layer DVD though...

 

If it really won't fit using a simple archive compression, you'll need to employ other methods.

Sophisticated people may extract the installation files (cab, etc), and recompress them using a more efficient method (like 7z), or even converting lossless to lossy and make a custom installer. That would be beyond the scope of most people.

You could also try deleting content like foreign languages, tutorial videos, etc. Make sure to test that it still installs & works fine.

 

I use 7z Archiving Format for big files. It's for me the best format!
Packages get even thinner when you compress them (in folders) first to RAR and then to 7z.
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off the subject of the question, but I wish I knew what bfd's bfdlactool is doing under the hood. it appears to both compress and convert to flac. I just ran it and reduced 165gb to 31.74%. that's incredible. now its 52gb total space. that's a nice compression ratio, and lossless to boot

I agree with sylenth will fall about trying an iso burner, several of their modern technology has internal footprint reduction. and also, like momo says, unless you need to keep it in its ISO state its better to unpack it to do heavier compression. im not expert in this however

 

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! (^__^)! I really appreciate all the ideas and help you guys provided!! Good news! Since it was a software iso for Kontakt Sultan Strings, I did as Dalmation, momo, and Kookaboo suggested and extracted the contents, placed them into a single folder, then split them into small volumes and then zipped them again and it reduced the file from 5.1 gb to about 3.4 gb!

Hope you don't mind me asking but could you please tell me what the recover record means and what lock archive and solid archive are for? They were already check marked so I didn't uncheck anything since I wasn't sure if I was archiving properly.

Thank you again for the assistance and have a great week!

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2015

Brickwall limiter is the best compression :D
Sorry for the stupid joke..

 

Recovery record is extra data (bigger size) added to archive so if in future something go wrong, you can try Repair archive in winrar.

Solid archive usually get better compression (smaller archive), but you canot add files to this archive later, and i dont think you can extract only select file from archive, must extract whole thing.

Here is image with some setting to help get smaller archive, does not always work. Different files = different result. Use solid archive in 4 - 5 for smallest try. I put v5 v4 setting of winrar because you dont say which one you use.

These setting will make winrar take longer to make and to extract archive!

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this to me lerkjurk and for the screencap settings!! This is greatly appreciated!! I will definitely keep this for archiving tutorial for reference!

Thank you again for the assistance and have a wonderful week!
Best regards!