How to Back Up a CD-ROM as an ISO on Linux

To back up a readable data CD-ROM as an ISO on Linux, use GNOME Disks or copy the optical drive to a file with dd. In GNOME Disks, select the CD/DVD drive, choose Create Disk Image, and save the result with an .iso extension. In a terminal, first identify the optical device (often /dev/sr0), then copy it to a new ISO file. Do not guess the device name: check it before running the command.

This guide covers ordinary data CDs that the drive can read. An ISO is not a track-aware audio CD rip, and a direct copy may fail on damaged or recordable discs with read errors. Use a dedicated CD ripper for audio, or GNU ddrescue for recovery work.

Method 1: Create an ISO with GNOME Disks

GNOME Disks may already be installed. If it is missing, install the gnome-disk-utility package with your distribution's package manager. Common commands are sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility on Debian or Ubuntu, sudo dnf install gnome-disk-utility on Fedora, sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility on Arch Linux, and sudo zypper install gnome-disk-utility on openSUSE. Menu wording can vary a little by release.

Insert the CD-ROM and open Disks. Select the physical CD/DVD drive in the left sidebar. Check that the selected device is the optical drive with your disc, rather than a hard drive, USB stick, or individual volume.
Select the optical drive that contains the CD-ROM.
Open the drive's three-dot menu and choose Create Disk Image…. This starts the image-saving flow for the selected device.
Choose Create Disk Image from the selected drive's menu.
In the save dialog, choose a folder and enter a clear filename such as archive.iso. Keep the .iso extension, make sure the destination has enough free space for the disc, and click Save.
Set the destination and save the image with an .iso filename.
Wait for the progress dialog to finish before ejecting the disc. When it closes, open the folder you chose and confirm that the new ISO file is there. Copy it to separate storage if you want a backup that survives damage to the computer's main drive.
Let the drive finish reading the disc before removing it.

Method 2: Copy the disc in a terminal

The terminal method uses GNU dd to read the optical drive as a block device and write those bytes to a regular file. The status=progress option displays transfer progress in GNU Coreutils.

With the CD-ROM inserted, list the block devices:
```
lsblk -p -o NAME,TYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINTS
```
Find the row whose type is rom, commonly /dev/sr0. If your computer has more than one optical drive, use the row and size that match the inserted disc. Some systems use a different /dev/srN path; substitute the exact path shown on your machine.
Use lsblk to identify the optical device before copying.
Run dd with the optical drive as the input and a new ISO filename as the output:
```
sudo dd if=/dev/sr0 of="$HOME/archive.iso" bs=2048 status=progress
```
Replace /dev/sr0 if your optical drive has another name. Pick a destination filename that does not already contain a file you need: dd overwrites its output path. If your account can already read the device, you can omit sudo.
The input is the optical drive; the output is a file in your home folder.
Let the command run until it returns to the shell prompt. The progress status is informational; do not eject the disc while it is being read. A read error means the resulting file may be incomplete. If the file was created by sudo, it may be owned by root; you can give it back to your account with sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME/archive.iso".
Wait for dd to finish and report that the copy has completed.
Check that Linux recognizes the saved file as an ISO image:
```
file "$HOME/archive.iso"
```
For a typical data CD, the result should identify an ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem. The exact label in the output comes from the disc. If the command reports only generic data, or dd reported an input/output error, do not treat the file as a verified backup.
Use file to confirm that the saved image is recognized as an ISO filesystem.

When the basic copy is not enough

A normal ISO copy is convenient for a readable data disc. Audio CDs have separate tracks and should be ripped with software designed for audio extraction. For a scratched disc or a CD-R that produces read errors, GNU's ddrescue documentation notes cases where ddrescue can recover more reliably than plain dd. Keep its mapfile if you use it so a recovery can resume. In all cases, keep the original disc until you have checked the image and stored another copy somewhere safe.

Official references

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