What is a .MDS file?
MDS is a disc-image descriptor from Alcohol 120%, paired with an MDF file.
- Did you know
- Alcohol 120% paired an MDS descriptor with an MDF image to copy protected discs.
- An MDS holds no disc contents itself - only metadata such as track layout, sessions and dual-layer break points.
- Because it records sub-channel and copy-protection details, an MDS/MDF pair can describe discs an ISO image cannot.
- What Analyser reads
- Inspect virtual-machine descriptors (VMware .vmx, VirtualBox .vbox, OVF/OVA), disc images (Nero .nrg, Alcohol .mds/.mdf, CloneCD), embedded firmware (Intel HEX, Motorola S-record, UF2, ELF/AXF, Device Tree Blobs, U-Boot uImage), partition tables (MBR/GPT with GUIDs), Linux filesystem superblocks (ext2/3/4, SquashFS, cramfs, romfs) and Windows imaging (WIM/ESD) - reading headers directly, no upload. The two generic suffixes are handled on their bytes rather than their name: a .bin opens in the raw-binary inspector (magic-byte guess, entropy profile, hex and ASCII dump) and names itself when the signature proves a raw BIN/CUE disc image or a Mega Drive cartridge dump, while a .out is read as either the ELF executable a compiler left behind or the plain-text log a batch job dumped. Either one is re-routed automatically when its bytes turn out to be a real format.
- Depth of analysis
- .MDS is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .MDS file
- Drag a .MDS file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.