ISO files do not mount

Symptom

Double-clicking an .ISO file does not mount the virtual drive: an error appears, nothing happens, or Windows prompts you to choose an app to open it with. No new DVD drive with the image contents appears in “This PC”.

Typical causes

A system service that handles device mounting is disabled — including virtual drives for images. It is usually disabled by “optimizers” and tweak collections; less often the service breaks after a Windows update.

Fix in BoosterX

1. Open BoosterX → the “Fixes” section (in the left menu).
2. In the search, type “ISO”.
3. Open the “Mounting ISO files” card and click “Fix”.
4. Restart Windows.

The fix returns the service that ISO mounting depends on to its default startup state if it was disabled. BoosterX can be downloaded from the official website boosterx.org.

How to verify

Double-click any ISO file: a virtual drive with the image contents should appear in “This PC”, and the files should open as if from a regular disk. After checking, right-click the drive → “Eject” — the drive will be disconnected.

Manual alternative without BoosterX

Press Win + R, type services.msc and press Enter. Find the service “Shell Hardware Detection” (in the English version of Windows — “Shell Hardware Detection”, the service name is ShellHWDetection). Right-click → “Properties” → startup type “Automatic” → “Apply”, then restart the PC. A temporary workaround: open the ISO with an archiver (for example, 7-Zip) and extract the needed files, or write the image to a disk or flash drive.

If it did not help

If images still do not mount after the fix and the manual steps, check the Windows event log entries that match the time of the error — incident analysis is helped by EventX. If the BoosterX fix did not help or the problem came back, write to support and attach the error text.

Last checked: 2026-09-20. Full catalog of fixes.