HELIOS Offers Free "mkisofs" Utility That Creates UDF Disk Images

Hannover, Germany – HELIOS Software GmbH has released for free download the ultimate cross-platform "mkisofs" disk image utility that enables flexible disk image creation for file archives and backups of critical files that goes far beyond simple DVD image creation. HELIOS "mkisofs" can be used for system snapshots, cross-platform archives, legal preservation, platform independent file transfer and as a simple and affordable backup software utility.

As a developer of cross-platform networking, file transfer, PDF and image server solutions, HELIOS Software takes pride in passing on its accumulated development experience to the Open Source community. HELIOS has extended the open source "mkisofs" utility, removing size and format limitations, making it a powerful and flexible tool ideal for creating data archives and custom universal disk format (UDF) images. It is scriptable for automated tasks (including scheduled backups) and can be used interactively (via "hot folders").

With built-in cross-platform support for preserving Mac and Windows file attributes, HELIOS "mkisofs" is hardware independent and creates disk images that can be read on multiple platforms. This makes HELIOS "mkisofs" suitable for long-term, archival applications where future OS and hardware requirements are unknown. Additionally, since HELIOS "mkisofs" creates "read-only" disk images, it can be used for preservation and legal archival documentation as it provides an uneditable snapshot of system files, documents or other data.

"Today's growing disk capacities and inexpensive external disk systems allow storing read-only archives quickly on disk instead of burning media or using proprietary tape formats," explained Helmut Tschemernjak, CEO and president of HELIOS. "HELIOS created a general purpose version of "mkisofs" capable of creating disk image archives that preserve Mac, Windows and UNIX attributes, and that can be easily mounted by Mac or Windows users."

"mkisofs" was mainly developed by the pioneer public domain engineer Jörg Schilling. Earlier versions are distributed with Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, Linux as well as part of many other solutions. "mkisofs" is now distributed as part of "cdrtools". The source code is available at: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/cdrecord.html. HELIOS contributions to "mkisofs" have been submitted to Jörg Schilling for incorporation into the "mkisofs" source.