Unlike ordinary archives, disk images contain not only data files, but also information about their location on the source medium. This allows specialized software to accurately simulate the operation of the original optical disc. There are more than a dozen formats that determine the order of recording a disk image. Some of them use two separate files to store raw data and information about its placement on disk. These include the mds / mdf format developed by Alcohol Soft.
Instructions
Step 1
If the operating system does not recognize files of this type, then it has not yet installed an application for working with this format. Select one of the programs, commonly called "emulators", to install on your computer. The most logical may be to use programs from the same company that developed it to work with mds / mdf-files. Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% emulators can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website (https://alcohol-soft.com). However, both are not free, while other companies and private authors distribute some of their own versions of emulators without asking for anything in return. For example, you can download the free Daemon Tools Lite application from the DT Soft website (https://daemon-tools.cc/rus/products/dtLite).
Step 2
After selecting and installing the program, you can run files with the mds and mdf extensions in the same way as any others - for example, by double-clicking the left mouse button. If you are using Windows OS, as an alternative way to mount a disk image, select the required file in the Explorer window and click on the "Open" button in its menu. Another option: right-click the object, open the "Open with" section in the context menu and select the name of the installed program from the list. The application will write all the information necessary to use these functions in the system registry during installation without your participation.
Step 3
You can do without the file manager of your operating system, just using the window of the installed emulator itself. To do this, launch the program using its shortcut on the desktop or an item in the OS main menu. Then select Mount Disk Image from the menu. For example, in the Daemon Tools Lite emulator, you need to either double-click a line in the list of recently opened images, or click the Add Image icon. As a result, a window will open in which you need to find and select the mdf-file, and then click the "Open" button. The program will do the rest by itself - another one will be added to the list of optical disc readers, imitating the disc from which the image file was copied.
