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SimpleXisoDrive Wiki

SimpleXisoDrive is a lightweight, read-only virtual file system driver for Windows. It mounts original Xbox ISO images (.iso, .xiso) and ZArchive (.zar) files as virtual drive letters or NTFS folder mount points and exposes their contents directly in Windows Explorer.

The application is built on the Dokan user-mode file system driver through DokanNet and uses the XISOSharp library to parse the Xbox Disc Video File System (XDVDFS). ZArchive files are read directly with on-demand zstd decompression. The source image is never modified: every write operation is rejected at the file system layer.

Developed by PureLogic Code and released under the GPL-3.0 license.

Documentation map

User guide

Page What it covers
Installation Requirements, Dokan and .NET runtime setup, installing and upgrading
Getting Started Your first mount, drag-and-drop, unmounting, example workflows
Command-Line Reference Complete argument/option reference, path resolution, exit codes
Troubleshooting Every known error message with causes and fixes
FAQ Short answers to common questions

Technical reference

Page What it covers
Architecture Component overview, startup and mount lifecycle, threading, error handling
XDVDFS Format On-disk format: volume descriptor, directory entries, partition offsets
Virtual File System Path resolution, caching, Dokan operation behaviour, read-only enforcement
Services Logging, bug reporting, statistics, update checker, access checks
Privacy and Networking Every network request, its payload, and how to run fully offline
Glossary Definitions of terms used throughout the documentation

Development

Page What it covers
Building Building and publishing for win-x64 and win-arm64
Testing Test project layout, running tests, coverage
Contributing Code style, analyzers, workflow, pull request checklist
Release History Tagged releases and notable changes

Feature overview

  • Read-only by design - the ISO or ZAR is never modified, and write, delete, rename, attribute, and timestamp operations are denied.
  • Broad Xbox format support - standard Xbox ISO dumps (volume descriptor at sector 32), rebuilt XISO images (sector 0), dual-layer/hybrid dumps using the XGD1, XGD3, and GLOBAL partition offsets, and CISO-compressed images (.cso, including split .1.cso part sets).
  • ZArchive support - .zar archives mount directly: either the stored game tree or a single embedded XISO image, streamed through the pure-C# zstd block decoder.
  • Zero-config drag-and-drop - drop an image onto the executable and it automatically picks a free drive letter from M: through R:.
  • Flexible mount targets - mount to a drive letter such as Z: or into an empty NTFS folder.
  • Memory efficient - file data is streamed from the image (and decompressed block-by-block for ZARs) on demand; the entire image is never loaded into memory.
  • Corruption resistant - the directory tree walker uses cycle detection and iteration limits to survive malformed images.
  • Built-in diagnostics - rolling logs, a local error log, crash handling, and an optional bug report/telemetry pipeline.
  • Update awareness - checks GitHub releases at startup and offers to open the release page.
  • Multi-architecture - native builds for Windows x64 and Windows ARM64.

At a glance

Property Value
Application name SimpleXisoDrive
Current version 1.3.0
Platform Windows (x64, ARM64)
Target framework .NET 10 (net10.0-windows)
File systems XDVDFS (original Xbox disc format), ZArchive (ZARCHIVE)
Access mode Read-only
Volume label XBOX_ISO (ISO) / XBOX_ZAR (ZArchive)
File system name XDVDFS (ISO) / ZARCHIVE (ZArchive)
Prerequisites Dokan 2.x, .NET 10 Runtime
License GPL-3.0
Repository https://github.com/purelogiccode/SimpleXisoDrive

Quick start

# Mount an ISO to the first free drive letter (M: through R:) and open Explorer
SimpleXisoDrive.exe "D:\Games\Halo.iso"

# Mount an ISO to drive Z:
SimpleXisoDrive.exe "D:\Games\Halo.iso" Z:

# Mount a ZArchive the same way
SimpleXisoDrive.exe "D:\Games\Halo.zar" Z:

# Mount a CISO image (single or split .1.cso part set)
SimpleXisoDrive.exe "D:\Games\Halo.cso" Z:

# Mount an ISO into an empty NTFS folder
SimpleXisoDrive.exe "D:\Games\Halo.iso" "C:\Mounts\Halo"

# Enable verbose Dokan debug output
SimpleXisoDrive.exe "D:\Games\Halo.iso" Z: --debug

The simplest path of all is to drag and drop an .iso, .xiso, .cso or .zar file onto SimpleXisoDrive.exe.

Support the project

License

SimpleXisoDrive is licensed under GPL-3.0. Third-party components:

Component License
DokanNet MIT
Dokan Library LGPL/MIT