The question of how to open a mdf file most often arises for those who have downloaded the game in torrent and do not know how to install it and what this file is. Typically, there are two files — one in MDF format and the other in MDS format. In this instruction, I will tell you in detail about how and how to open such files in different situations.
What is a mdf file?
First of all, I’ll talk about what a mdf file is: files with the .mdf extension are CD and DVD CD images saved as a single file on a computer. As a rule, for the correct operation of these images, an MDS file is also saved, which contains service information - however, if this file does not exist, it’s okay to open the image and we will succeed.
What program can open the mdf file
There are many programs that can be downloaded for free and which allow you to open files in mdf format. It is worth noting that the “opening” of these files does not occur exactly like the opening of other types of files: when you open the disk image, it is mounted in the system, i.e. you seem to have a new drive for reading CDs in your computer or laptop, where the disc recorded in mdf is inserted.
Daemon tools lite
The free Daemon Tools Lite program is one of the most frequently used programs for opening various types of disk images, including in mdf format. The program can be downloaded for free from the official website of the developer http://www.daemon-tools.cc/rus/products/dtLite
After installing the program, a new drive for reading CDs, or, in other words, a virtual disk, will appear in the system. Launching Daemon Tools Lite, you can open the mdf file and mount it in the system, then use the mdf file as a regular disk with a game or program.
Alcohol 120%
Another great program to open mdf files is Alcohol 120%. The program is paid, but you can download the free version of this program from the manufacturer’s website http://www.alcohol-soft.com/
Alcohol 120% works similarly to the previous program described and allows you to mount mdf images in the system. In addition, with the help of this software you can burn the mdf image to a physical CD. Supports Windows 7 and Windows 8, 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
Ultraiso
Using UltraISO, you can either open disk images in a variety of formats, including mdf, or burn them to disks, change the contents of images, extract it or convert various types of disk images to standard ISO images, which, for example, can be mounted on Windows 8 without using any additional software. The program is also paid.
Magic ISO Maker
With this free program you can open an mdf file and convert it to ISO. It is also possible to write to a disk, including creating a boot disk, changing the composition of a disk image, and a number of other functions.
Poweriso
PowerISO is one of the most powerful programs for working with disk images, creating bootable flash drives and other purposes. Among other functions - support for files in mdf format - you can open them, extract the contents, convert the file to an ISO image or burn to disk.
How to open MDF on Mac OS X
If you are using a MacBook or iMac, then in order to open the mdf file you will have to cheat a little:
- Rename the file by changing the extension from mdf to ISO
- Mount the ISO image on the system using the disk utility
Everything should be successful and this will allow you to use the mdf image without installing any programs.
How to open mdf file on Android
It is possible that someday you will need to get the contents of the mdf file on your Android tablet or phone. Make it easy - just download the free ISO Extractor program from Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id\u003dse.qzx.isoextractor and access all the files stored in the disk image from your android -devices.
- The extension (format) is the characters at the end of the file after the last point.- The computer determines the type of file by extension.
- By default, Windows does not show file name extensions.
- You cannot use some characters in the file name and extension.
- Not all formats are related to the same program.
- Below are all the programs with which you can open the MDS file.
WinCDEmu is a simple program that helps users create virtual CD and DVD drives. Allows you to quickly run existing disk images on your computer. WinCDEmu integrates wonderfully into the operating system explorer. Manipulations with starting a virtual drive can be done through the context menu. Just right-click on the desired image and mount or unmount it. Thus, the user can quickly mount the image, avoiding unnecessary manipulation. WinCDEmu, as well as its analogues, supports the main formats for virtual images.
Free Any Burn is a program for burning optical discs that allows you to record almost all image formats on a medium, as well as create them yourself. It has a small size, but the set of functions for this program is quite extensive. Free Any Burn, as mentioned above, can read images of any formats, and then write them to any optical medium. The main thing is that there is recording equipment. At the same time, the program recognizes not only well-known formats, for example, NRG, but also some others, for example, cue. In the latter case, when recording this image, a full-fledged audio CD is obtained, unless, of course, fla ...
DAEMON Tools Lite is a very reliable software for emulating virtual CD, DVD, Blu-ray drives and for creating various disk images with support for various protection systems. Able to create mds, iso, mdx and mdf images of CD, DVD, Blu-ray with the function of protecting and compressing images with a password. This unique program can mount all known images. It can create a total of up to 4 virtual drives. This will be an indispensable thing, for example, for netbooks, because they do not have optical drives in their kit. Despite its relatively small size, the program has all ...
Alcohol 52% is a free program for emulating and creating images. This program allows you to create several virtual drives, and then write to them any image. In this case, you can either take an image from the Internet or any source, or first create it from a disk. In some cases, emulating an image using a virtual drive allows you to abandon the use of physical media. This is sometimes necessary when you take a disk from a friend, or you just don’t want to constantly get it from the shelf, but the program requires it. Then you can use the function of creating a virtual drive.
IsoBuster is a program from Smart Projects, which is designed to recover data. Useful in that it can open files on CD / DVD-ROMs, if Windows can not open them. Even when they cannot be read using your operating system, IsoBuster will recover files. The peculiarity of the program is that it works directly with tracks, disc sessions and sectors. The free version of the program supports almost all formats of CD and DVD, but alas, it does not support Blu-ray disk and HD DVD. The program also works with virtual drives, images and can convert files. Multilingualism is also available ...
Astroburn Lite is a small free program for creating and burning discs. Astroburn Lite is a stripped down version of the paid analogue, and therefore not all functions are available in it. Nevertheless, the program supports recording on any kind of media, and also works with most drives. The program allows you to add files to the project with just a couple of mouse clicks. The only thing that she does not know how to create folders, so before recording it is better to do it yourself. In addition, Astroburn Lite works great with almost all image formats. It is possible to record even audio albums recorded without ...
MDS (Media Descriptor File) is an extension of files that contain supporting information about a disk image. This includes the location of the tracks, the organization of data, and everything else that is not the main content of the image. With the imaging software on hand, opening MDS is easy.
It is worth considering one nuance - MDS are only an addition to the MDF files, which directly include disk image data. This means that without the main MDS file, most likely, it will not work.
Method 1: Alcohol 120%
Usually, it is through the Alcohol program that 120% create files with the MDS extension, so it recognizes this format by any means. Alcohol 120% is one of the most functional tools for writing files to optical disks and mounting virtual drives. True, for long-term use you will have to buy the full version of the program, but in order to open MDS, a trial version is enough.
Now you can view all the files that the image contains.
Method 2: DAEMON Tools Lite
By analogy, you can open MDS through DAEMON Tools Lite. This program is practically not inferior in functionality to the previous version. To use all the features of DAEMON Tools Lite, you will need to purchase a license, but for our purposes the free version will suffice.
The same can be done through "Quick mount" at the bottom of the program window.
Method 3: UltraISO
Method 4: PowerISO
A good alternative for opening an image through MDS is PowerISO. Most of all, it resembles UltraISO, but with a simplified interface. PowerISO is a paid program, but a trial version is enough to open MDS.
As a result, we can say that there is nothing complicated in opening MDS files. Alcohol 120% and DAEMON Tools Lite open the contents of images in Explorer, and UltraISO and PowerISO allow you to view files immediately in the workspace and extract if necessary. The main thing is not to forget that MDS is associated with MDF and does not open separately.
Is a disk image that can be opened in the Alcohol program. As a result, you will have a disk that does not differ from the original from which this image was copied.
Format difference mds from many others, in addition to the data of the disk itself, it also contains information about the structure of the disk — data about the tracks of organizing information on the disk.
If you omit all the abstruse words, then we can say that mds image better suited for copying toys than many other formats. For many toy manufacturers embed in their offspring a check of the structure of the disc’s tracks, and thus, when you copy the game to an iso image, there is no information about the tracks in it and therefore the game refuses to run on a simulated image. At the time when you make the mds image, this service information that the game checks at startup is in the image and is emulated by the program. Therefore, the game runs smoothly.
To summarize: if you are copying a game, and even more so if it is protected by some kind of protection, it is best to copy it to mds imagerather than the same as, for example, iso.
Mds: how to open an image?
Mds images have recently become no less popular than iso. And this is understandable: they copy games well, take up space not much more than iso, allow you to run games that do not go with other images.
So.. Mds than open image? In general, there is a lot of software to open this format, however, the best program for this format is Alcohol. () The program is quite simple and yet we will take a look at the steps how to open mds images:
1) Go to the program menu, right-click on the virtual cd / dvd drive. A menu appears - from it we select the item - mount image. 
2) Next, the standard explorer window starts. Go to the folder in which the necessary images are located.
3) Now it remains only to press the open button. Further, the work will not be different from the same as if you inserted a real physical disk into the computer’s drive.
How to create an MDS image?
Over the network, most often games can be downloaded in images. - This is the most common, along with iso, format that copies very well even protected games. This image usually consists of two files, format mds and mdf. The best program to work with these files is, of course, Alcohol. And so. let's consider how to create an mds imagedisk on a specific example. Everything will be described in order, and shown in the screenshots: 1) Open Alcohol and click on the image.
3) Now it remains only to choose where our files will be copied (i.e. the place where the mds image will lie) and click on start. Usually a disk is not copied for a very long time, min. 10-15, however, to a greater degree affects the quality of the copied disk.
Mds image not less than iso is found on the network, however, the number of programs that allow you to open it is substantially less. Maybe this is due to the facts that the mds image appeared relatively later, plus in addition to the data of the disk itself, there is also service information about the structure and tracks of the copied disk.
Mount mds image such programs as Daemon Tools and Alcohol will help us. Which one is better is a moot point, each user has already made a choice for a long time. Many install both programs and use them in turn, depending on addictions and situations. Let's look at the steps that you need to click on in Alcohol to safely mount the mds image:
1) Run the program.
2) We right-click on the program drive (virtual drive!) And poke the mount image item.
3) After which it remains only to choose the mds image that we are going to open.
Burning an MDS Image to Disk
It may be necessary to write the mds image to the disk in those cases when you want to free up space on the hard drive, give the disk to a friend who does not have a network to download the image from you, or just make sure that there is a backup disk. In general, this is not so important, the main thing is that you came to the idea of \u200b\u200brecording an image.
And so ... How to burn an mds image to disk? Everything is quite simple. First, the Alcohol program must be installed. After it starts, select the option to burn DVD / CD disc. Next, you should see a window with a choice of image for recording, as in the screenshots below.
Select an image, click open, then the next button.
Before you open the last window, which offers to choose a recorder, recording speed and other parameters. To record a game, and indeed other images, it is better not to choose the maximum speed, in order to reduce the risk of errors, it is better to slightly reduce it. And then boldly press the start button. After some time, approximately 10-15 minutes, your game will be recorded to disk.
The mdf extension stands for "Media Disc Image File" in English. Most often, this is an image of a CD or DVD that is created using a special program, most often it is alcohol 120. Usually, images created with alcohol 120 have more than one image file in mdf format, but two, usually it is also mds. The file with the mdf extension is the main one; the image itself is stored in it. And mds is auxiliary so to speak.
What program to open the mdf file
Further, I propose to consider several programs that work with mdf files. There are quite a few of them, but I will tell you about the three most popular. The principle of operation of the emulator program is as follows: it creates a virtual drive on the computer, and already works with images from it. For the operating system, the real drive does not matter or not, but the read and write speeds increase dozens of times.
1. How to open mdf file through daemon tools
And so how to open a mdf file using daemon tools. Launch the daemon tools program and drag the mdf file into the daemon tools program window.
After that, our image should appear in the catalog of images. Next, we right-click on it, select mount in drive. All after that, the image in mdf format can be opened via a virtual CD-ROM.
Among the advantages of this program, I would single out:
Create multiple drives (up to 36 in the pro version);
Ability to circumvent various types of defenses;
Support for all operating systems of the Windows family; there is also a version for MacOS;
It can work with 14 types of extensions, including mdf;
Wide functionality (reading, creating, compressing images, writing, splitting a file, etc.);
There are few disadvantages:
There is no way to unmount a disk;
A very stripped down free version, works only in the tray;
When installing, it tries to impose a lot of unnecessary programs.
Download daemon tools http://www.daemon-tools.cc/rus/downloads
2. How to open mdf file via alcohol 120
And so how to open an image in mdf format through the alcohol program 120%. The first thing we do is launch alcohol. Next, click File Open and specify the path to our image, select the desired image and click open. After that, our image should appear on the right side of the program.
Now you need to right-click on the image and select Mount on device in the drop-down menu. After that, our image will be mounted in a virtual drive under a beech (I :).
If the image does not start automatically, it can be found by going to My computer and opening the virtual drive under the letter (I :) your letter may be different.
I will highlight the main characteristics:
Supports recording images from multiple media simultaneously;
The number of virtual drives up to 31, in the free version 6;
Works with 12 types of extensions;
Allows you to copy from disk to disk;
Can erase information from media;
Works with CD, DVD and Blye-ray.
Disadvantages:
Compatible only with Windows OS.
Download alcohol 120 http://trial.alcohol-soft.com/en/downloadtrial.php
3. How to open mdf file with ultraiso
The main difference from the above programs I see in the ability to create boot disks and flash drives (with boot sector) for installing DOS, Windows NT and Linux systems. These drives are needed to reinstall the operating system or, for example, in the treatment of viruses when the main system is infected and you have to boot from the disk.
And so we start the ultraiso program in the menu, look for the Tools tab and in the drop-down menu click on Mount in a virtual drive or just press the F6 hotkey. After which you should see the Virtual Drive window. It is necessary to specify the path to the image file in it and click Mount.
After that, the image should appear in the virtual drive. You can also find it by going to my computer.
Support for more than 30 file formats;
Creating images of optical, hard drives, as well as flash drives and floppy disks;
Ability to edit file emulation;
Optimization of the image structure.
Only compatible with Windows OS;
Limitation of the free version when working with images of more than 300MB;
Only supports CD, DVD.
Download ultraiso http://ultraiso.ru.softonic.com/
In conclusion, I can say that all these utilities are very worthy and offer the user the necessary basic set of functions for working with mdf files. Choosing a particular program is based on your preferences and tasks.
Bluetooth
