Question I'm trying to extract multiple archives into the folders where they reside...

[ultranothing]

Okay, thanks in advance for whatever help anyone can give me - this is kind of complicated.

I have almost 500 .ISO disc images on a HDD. They're all contained within sub-folders. I'm searching for them with the term "*.ISO" and the results populate. I need to extract them all to the folders where they each reside, so I highlight them all and right-click. PowerISO > Extract Here.

The problem is that "here" is whatever directory the random ISO I happen to right-click on is in.

Is there an option, via the GUI or command-line, that will allow the ISO's to all be extracted to the same directory they're all currently in?

 

[Ralston18]

Yes.

First: before doing anything ensure that all of the files are backed up to other locations away from the current host computer/HDD. At least 2 x backups that are proven recoverable and readable.

Mass file moves can easily go astray. Even if there is a well ordered folder, subfolder, and file structure.

Second: to verify the requirements.

You have a Folder A with multiple subfolders A1, A2, A3.... The requirement is to find all of the *.iso files in the subfolders and move those *.iso files to Folder A. Leaving A1, A2, A3 empty of *.iso files. Correct?

Do the subfolders contain even more subfolders?

Very likely the requirement can be accomplished with a Powershell script file.

Recursive and using the Move-Item cmdlet.

Should be fairly straight forward but try small scale testing first using copies of the directories, folders, and subfolders involved.

If the tests fail in some manner, delete the results and start over with new copies of the original *.iso data files.

Focus on simple scripts that perhaps work only with one specific Folder versus some larger effort to encompass all folders at once. I.e, a fixed path approach. Once working then edit the script to repeat the move process for a differently named folder.

 

[Math Geek]

i don't think that is right. sounds like he wants to extract the files from within the iso file for each iso in the separate folders. and he wants the extracted files to go into a subfolder within the folder the iso is in.

so folder A with A.iso needs to now contain a new folder ExctractedA with the files of that iso. and so on.

mass extracting to a single new location is easy.

never tried it this way but scripting it seems like the best idea. search for the .iso's like you have been and save the results. then one by one create the new folder in the parent folder of the .iso and finally extract the .iso into that folder. repeat for each result the search had.

or use the "extract to folder ____" option each time to save the step.

i have no idea if this is built into poweriso or winrar or any of the other archive programs. but a script through powershell would do the job if you can write it.

 

[USAFRet]

i don't think that is right. sounds like he wants to extract the files from within the iso file for each iso in the separate folders. and he wants the extracted files to go into a subfolder within the folder the iso is in.

No, I think it is to select a whole bunch of individual ISOs, in multiple folders and subs, and extract to where those individual ISOs live.

Of course, I may be incorrect.

 

[Math Geek]

No, I think it is to select a whole bunch of individual ISOs, in multiple folders and subs, and extract to where those individual ISOs live.

Of course, I may be incorrect.

i think we are saying the same thing here, just in different ways

 

[ultranothing]

I know, it's kinda complicated. I'm sorry

I have a collection of DOS games. There's about 7000 of them. About 500 of the games were CD-ROM releases. These CD-ROMs exist as .ISO images within a subfolder of each game labeled "CD".

I'll be archiving these games on a 1990's computer I built. It has special hardware so that FreeDOS can recognize a 1TB HDD. The "Retro PC" drive is hooked up to my new PC via a SATA-to-USB cable so I can add, modify, delete, etc., files on it.

DOS doesn't have a way (that I know of) to read, mount, or understand .ISO files. I could probably extract the ISO files from within the Retro PC but I imagine it would take a lot longer and be much more tedious of a process, so I'm doing it all on the new PC which is way faster and easier. Because DOS can't work with the .ISO files, I'm going to be using a little program called FakeCD. With FakeCD, I can create batch files that will allow a directory on the HDD to become a temporary virtual CD-ROM drive.

Now the ISO's for all these games are conveniently located within a "CD" folder inside their respective game folders. But, again, they're ISO's. If I'm going to point FakeCD to the CD folder, the ISO's need to be extracted first so that the games can see the files that were ON the CD's so that the games will work.

Right now, I've got a search results window up that shows me all the .ISO images and their respective locations. With a few exceptions, most of these CD-based games only have one CD.

What I'm trying to do, is to be able to select these ISO images from the search results, right-click them, and have each one extract into the CD folder where it currently lives. I'll then delete these ISO files to save space, and now each CD directory contains only the files that were on the CD originally.

From there, I can create batch files for each game using FakeCD so that those CD directories become temporary virtual CD-ROM drives (I know, I've been calling them folders and I'm sorry for that).

When I right-click multiple ISO's from the search results and go PowerISO > Extract Here, it's extracting all of the contents of the ISO's to the file location of whatever ISO I happened to be hovering over when I right-clicked. I need the "here" to be "there".

What I suppose I really need, ideally, is an option to right-click, PowerISO > Extract Each Archive To The Folder Where The Archive Is And Then Delete The Archive, but I don't think they've implemented that. I'll settle for PowerISO > Extract Each Archive To The Folder Where The Archive Is, and then delete the ISO's myself.

I'm not too good with creating scripts but I'm willing to learn. I at least know how to load Powershell so that's something.

 

[Ralston18]

Perhaps:

Mount-DiskImage

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-mount-or-unmount-iso-images-windows-10

"Powershell" about 1/2 way down the link.

Or

https://www.onmsft.com/how-to/mount-iso-images-on-windows-11

"Powershell" near the end of the link. Should work for Windows 10 as well.

https://www.isunshare.com/blog/how-to-mount-extract-open-an-iso-file-on-windows-10/

Method 3.

= = = =

Set up a test to determine if the cmdlets works as you require with just one target/test .iso.

Physically separate test environment recommended.

Again: always be sure to have backups beforehand.

Work out each requirement individually as a single cmdlet with one purpose. Then script them all together to automate the full sequence of requirements for any given game and its' respective .iso, target drive, folder(s), etc..

However, I would not count on every game .iso working out the same way. Who knows what all may actually happen (by manufacturer design) when you attempt to extract the games into a playable environment.

 

[Grobe]

There is one problem, or may call it the third side of a pan cake nobody seems to have taught about. So - many software products that handles encrypted files or cd/dvd images have this aditional feature of adding a new "Extract here" (or variants) into a file's right click menu.

However - the exact way that each piece of software actually behaves in the situation where multiple packed files in different locations are in different from each other, I'd expect different software options won't behave the same.

I must admit I've not gain a complete understanding on what OP's end result here i, but I agree to what's being said about backups and I assume there will be some amount of manual work in order to get it the way OP want.

This is probably based on a wrong understanding of the problem, but if for each group of iso images, OP want to be extracted in a common directory where a new directory with name derived from the name of each iso files, I'd resolve it like this:

• BACKUP !
• Install 7-zip (this is a tool I've used very much myself)
• Rearange the ISO files in such way you want to group them (games, files, etc)
• Create main folders accordingly (games, files, etc)
• Say you want to extract all the game iso files first:
  • Open two explorer windows, one that navigates to where the folder holding the games iso files, the other one you navigate to the main folder where you want all the games iso files being extracted.
  • In the folder holding the iso files, select all iso files.
  • Right-click and drag into the other explorer window (this will bring up an extract meny once you release the right mouse button)
  • Then select the option Extract to "*\" - this makes each iso file to be extracted in a new subfolder that inherit it's name from the original iso file.
• Control the result and repeat for other groups of iso images.