Mount MDF on Linux?

[retroman]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering whether there are any tips on how to mount a DMF image on Linux? I don't believe the image is copy protected, so mounting it on Windows and converting it should be possible, but I'd rather not go that route if possible.

Thank you

[captainlinux8880]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering whether there are any tips on how to mount a DMF image on Linux? I don't believe the image is copy protected, so mounting it on Windows and converting it should be possible, but I'd rather not go that route if possible.

Thank you

I think the question is a little misunderstood. DMF is a 1.68 MB floppy disk, not a format. I assume that your floppy disk format is img. Maybe the Furis ISO Mount Tool is working? Try to install it using this command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install furiusisomount

[retroman]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering whether there are any tips on how to mount a DMF image on Linux? I don't believe the image is copy protected, so mounting it on Windows and converting it should be possible, but I'd rather not go that route if possible.

Thank you

I think the question is a little misunderstood. DMF is a 1.68 MB floppy disk, not a format. I assume that your floppy disk format is img. Maybe the Furis ISO Mount Tool is working? Try to install it using this command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install furiusisomount

OMG! I meant MDF, the output file from Alcohol 120.

I'll got to a corner a sit there until I see the error of my ways.

[mrpijey]

Corrected title.

[AlphaBeta]

Perhaps you could use mdf2iso (packaged in most distributions' repositories) to convert it to ISO and then mount that?

[Hyoenmadan86]

That will not work if your disk is a mixed/hybrid CD (ISO sessions mixed with other FSs like on IRIX/MacOS) or a CD with raw audio tracks.

Loonix has been always a terrible OS to handle emulation of anything which isn't a block disk image, at least software only. Loop kernel modules don't have the concept of optical drives (CD/DVD/MO/Floptical/etc) and treat everything like a plain FS block device. In past there were some efforts to bring true emulation of optical drives like CDEMU kernel modules and such, along with support for multitrack CD formats like CUE/BIN, CCD and MDF... But loonix community are such square heads... To them was enough with loop and handling ISO images as plain FS volumes, so they never supported CDEMU and friends, and them were let to rust and die.

These days linux support drive emulation but only as target device exposed to a real bus, like USB for example. There are some code to support multitrack optical drive images like CUE/BIN as an "USB Virtual CD Gadget". I guess "USB Gadgets" kernel modules have debug support which allows to use them in the same machine via a virtual USB bus. Maybe you can compile your kernel to use that as "Virtual CD" emulation. Then you can convert your mdf to CUE/BIN and have it emulated as a true CD if you need it. But if you go such route, I'm fear you will be alone as there isn't documentation or forum help about it.

[vbdasc]

But loonix community are such square heads... To them was enough with loop and handling ISO images as plain FS volumes, so they never supported CDEMU and friends, and them were let to rust and die.

I don't know... CDEMU seemed to be alive and well the last time I checked... It runs perfectly well on my box running Debian stable.

Loonix has been always a terrible OS to handle emulation of anything which isn't a block disk image

Which OS is better? Windoze? It needs 3rd party software with kmode drivers and all to emulate CDs, just like "Loonix". And it also has had VIP treatment for block devices since its DOS days, just like "Loonix".

[vbdasc]

Hello everyone,

I was wondering whether there are any tips on how to mount a DMF image on Linux? I don't believe the image is copy protected, so mounting it on Windows and converting it should be possible, but I'd rather not go that route if possible.

Thank you

I'm afraid that you don't have many options besides CDEMU (https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdemu/). Installing it can be tricky and require some Linux experience, but once installed, it does its job well. And yes, it supports the MDS/MDF format.

If your MDF image contains nothing more than a single data track, your best bet is probably converting to iso9660 and mounting via loop.

[retroman]

Perhaps you could use mdf2iso (packaged in most distributions' repositories) to convert it to ISO and then mount that?

That did the trick quite nicely. Thank you.

[Hyoenmadan86]

It needs 3rd party software with kmode drivers and all to emulate CDs, just like "Loonix".

Not since Win7. And unlike Loonix cloop module, vhdmp.sys actually emulates a proper virtual CD device (and a virtual HDD ofc too, if you need that). I give you it doesn't mount MDS/MDF, but the 3rd party options to do it are plenty, and easy to find and install, unlike Loonix CDEMU. And, if you get an iSCSI usermode server which can parse MDS/MDF and emulate the copy protection, you can mount that as a virtual SCSI device as well, with the freeware MS iSCSI kernel mode client since WinXP. If I remember well, StarWind iSCSI target service built in Alcohol 120% supports that.

And while is true Windows also support loop-style FS volume images with things like ImDisk via the volume filter manager (FLTMGR.sys), it doesn't make sense to actually use them, specially since DISM doesn't work on such volumes, so you would only use them as data volumes, not as proper system volumes, unless you image a real partition into something ImDisk can use. Even less when you have VHD superior solution built in the OS.

PD: I'm glad CDEMU is still alive. Last time I tested in 2017 was like in a sort of long rewritting, and the cdemu-kernel module was long time outdated and didn't work with latest (at time) loonix kernels.

[vbdasc]

vhdmp.sys actually emulates a proper virtual CD device

Wow, wait a minute, can you provide some link for this? Because if this is even possible, the instructions for doing so are better hidden and more obscure than anything I've seen on "Loonix" so far, and on par with the proverbial plans for demolishing Mr. Arthur Dent's house from the "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy".

Or are you talking about creating a virtual CD drive for a Hyper-V guest?

I also find real funny how M$ never bothered to make their "Virtual CD-ROM control panel" compatible with 64-bit Windoze.

the 3rd party options to do it [in Windoze] are plenty, and easy to find and install

I had to do just that recently, and it was not easy for me at all to filter out all the malware-infested junk that Google found for me on the Web. Including the official versions of Alcohol and Daemon Tools.

[Hyoenmadan86]

Because if this is even possible, the instructions for doing so are better hidden and more obscure than anything I've seen on "Loonix" so far.

No need for any links. Just right click on any ISO image and select "Mount CD Image" on the right click menu, then profit. Works out of the box, in all Win7 editions. No HyperV required.
Works with VHD files too. Works with 64bit windows.

I had to do just that recently, and it was not easy for me at all to filter out all the malware-infested junk that Google found for me on the Web. Including the official versions of Alcohol and Daemon Tools.

Here, the typical paranoid square mind of the average loonix evangelist.
In any case, the options are there, including open source stuff like WinCDemu (which I don't like as it can't mount mixed mode images, making it useless as option) (ironically, looks like CDEMU on loonix supports them via their libmirage library) . If you want to "filter" them, that's your choice.

[AlphaBeta]

The ISO mount in Windows 8 certainly does not emulate a proper CD-ROM drive. For one, it doesn't support High Sierra images, even though HSF is supported when using actual drives.

[Hyoenmadan86]

The ISO mount in Windows 8 certainly does not emulate a proper CD-ROM drive.

Certainly VHDMP.sys does create a proper Virtual CD device. The proof is that it reacts properly to all the SPTI commands a normal CDROM drive support. In Win7 it could be even accessed through the old Adaptec ASPI interface (not recommended, 32bit windows only).
But the image parser component (VHDPARSE.sys) may not have support for anything but standard ISO images (probably a Microsoft typical opt-out). Opensource Arsenal Image Mounter, CDemu and ImDisk are the same. They only support the stuff their parsers can handle (libmirage, DiscUtils library).

The question here is: Does linux cloop mount high sierra CD images? Because the argument was that Windows couldn't mount pure ISO files out of the box as linux. I never said that Windows was offering an advanced optical drive emulator like Alcohol 120 out of the box.

[vbdasc]

No need for any links. Just right click on any ISO image and select "Mount CD Image" on the right click menu, then profit. Works out of the box, in all Win7 editions.

Well, I just checked that on a Windows 7 box and guess what, there is no such option. Are you sure about its availability on Windows 7?

Certainly VHDMP.sys does create a proper Virtual CD device. The proof is that it reacts properly to all the SPTI commands a normal CDROM drive support.

Too bad that the SPTI commands on an ISO file-backed Virtual CD are about as useful as fake tits on a zombie. With the sole exception of the Eject command. More Microsoft inconsistency and lack of forward thinking.

But the image parser component (VHDPARSE.sys) may not have support for anything but standard ISO images (probably a Microsoft typical opt-out).

Are you sure? I just checked a Windows 10 box and it doesn't have such a file at all. There is VHDPARSER.SYS, but it's apparently only a component of Hyper-V and does NOT get loaded when an ISO image is loaded.

The question here is: Does linux cloop mount high sierra CD images?

The answer is YES. Note that it has nothing to do with the loop/cloop stuff though, it's just that the kernel supports a High Sierra filesystem (or to be more accurate, the iso9660 filesystem module in the kernel recognizes and supports the High Sierra format)

Because the argument was that Windows couldn't mount pure ISO files out of the box as linux. I never said that Windows was offering an advanced optical drive emulator like Alcohol 120 out of the box.

Just as nobody said that Windows couldn't mount pure ISO files out of the box as linux.

[vbdasc]

The ISO mount in Windows 8 certainly does not emulate a proper CD-ROM drive. For one, it doesn't support High Sierra images, even though HSF is supported when using actual drives.

The funny part is that they could easily support it (because the ISO mount does indeed have most features of a proper optical drive), but chose not to, most probably because the implementors didn't know about High Sierra, or have forgotten, and they decided to parse images before mounting them, due sECuRiTy.

[captainlinux8880]

I think the question is a little misunderstood. DMF is a 1.68 MB floppy disk, not a format. I assume that your floppy disk format is img. Maybe the Furis ISO Mount Tool is working? Try to install it using this command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install furiusisomount

OMG! I meant MDF, the output file from Alcohol 120.

I'll got to a corner a sit there until I see the error of my ways.

IMO, this tool can also mount MDF images.

[AlphaBeta]

But the image parser component (VHDPARSE.sys) may not have support for anything but standard ISO images (probably a Microsoft typical opt-out). Opensource Arsenal Image Mounter, CDemu and ImDisk are the same. They only support the stuff their parsers can handle (libmirage, DiscUtils library).

There is nothing to parse about ISO images, they're just raw file system dumps. Why would some "image parser component" be involved when it could just leverage the existing file system drivers?

[vbdasc]

There is nothing to parse about ISO images, they're just raw file system dumps. Why would some "image parser component" be involved when it could just leverage the existing file system drivers?

Probably a sanity check, to ensure that a well-formed iso9660 image is passed to the mount. Used as a weak barrier against potential exploitable bugs (diminishing attack surface, they call it). Such parser definitely exists in one form or another though, else there is no explanation why the image mount feature can't mount High Sierra (because the mounting itself definitely is done using the existing file system drivers, which do support High Sierra).