What do I do with .mdf and .mds files in Mint 11?

[Drumlind]

How do I open these files? I've spent over 10 hours searching Google and trying all kinds of different programs. I tried mounting them (not really sure what that means) burning them. I played with the terminal....Im frustrated! I really want to learn this Linux stuff!

[cecar]

Have a look here and see if that helps you.

http://www.howtodothings.com/computers- ... untu-linux

[xenopeek]

Searching for "mdf mds linux" turns up various solutions, with it seemingly being the best approach to convert your file to another format. Easiest is probably installing iat (apt install iat) and then running it as follows to convert a file.mdf in the current directory from newfile.iso (where you replace "file.mdf" with the name of your mdf file, and "newfile.iso" with how you want the new iso file to be called):

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iat file.mdf newfile.iso

You can browse to the directory where you have the mdf file with your file manager, and then from context menu select to open it in a terminal and you can then run the command from there.

[Drumlind]

Wow you guys responded FAST thank you! I went to HowToDoThings.com as cecar suggested, and could not get it to work. So, I went to mdf2iso homepage (http://mdf2iso.berlios.de/) and all it had was a message saying, "mdf2iso is deprecated, for best experience with image use Iso9660 Analyzer Tool able to convert : BIN, MDF..." So, next I tried this "iat" as the homepage and xenopeek suggested, still did not get it to work. So I went to the Iso9660 Analyzer Tool Contact and emailed them. Salvatore Santagati himself responded and said " This program doesn't work with Audio CD" so I asked him what does and he basically told me to contact linux mint support. Possibly either of your suggestions actually do work and I'm just not doing it right?

[xenopeek]

Ah, well you hadn't mentioned it was from an audio CD I'd imagine you'd normally back those up to FLAC, taking less space while being an exact copy.

Anyway, a search around the Internet turns up this page only that I could find: http://www.sqweek.com/sqweek/index.php?p=5. Very old, hopefully it will still work. It purportedly allows you to extract audio data from mdf/mds files.

You'll need to compile it from source. Easy-peasy:

1. First install the package build-essential, so you have a compiler
2. Then download the file mdfextract-0.1.tar.gz from the website and extract it (either your web browser will open the archive already, or you can open the file from your file manager).
3. After extracting the folder mdfextract-0.1 from the download file, to somewhere in your home folder, open a terminal and go to this mdfextract-0.1 folder.
4. Run the command:

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   make mdfextract

5. You now have a new file in this folder called mdfextract, which you can run from the terminal like so:

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   ./mdfextract

You can just copy this mdfextract file to the folder where you have your mdf/mds files, open a terminal there, and run the mdfextract command with the right parameters to extract the audio data from your mdf/mds files. Now, I have tested the compile works fine and the program runs fine, but I don't have any mdf/mds files (had never heard of them in fact) so I can not guarantee the program actually does what it is supposed to. Worth a try I think

[Drumlind]

Yeah... sorry I thought that only mdf files came from audio CDs... in fact, I never heard of using FLAC before. Thanks for mentioning it!

So, I seen that sqweek.com page before and downloaded it and had no idea what to do with it, but I followed your directions the best I could (messing with these mdf files is the first and olny experience I've had with using the Terminal so I really thank you for your patience). While trying to figure the terminal out and what you were saying (with my lack of knowledge and experience) I was coming up with different things on the terminal that looked to me like they were different errors each different time I tried doing what you suggested... UNTIL I ended up with this strange (but I think good) alien gibberish in the terminal.....


mdfextract 0.1 (c)2007 Bjorge Dijkstra

usage: mdfextract [options] file.mds

options:
-i output mds info instead of extracting
-r extract raw track data
-s output to stdout instead of file
-t <num> extract single track (num > 0)
-q quiet, no output


...is this good? hahaha i have no Idea whats going on. So, " -r extract raw track data" looked like the best option for me so I typed r and hit Enter...but nothing happened at all...sounds like the hard drive was doing something...but nothing happened so I tried to close the window and it says, "There is still a process running in this terminal. Closing the terminal will kill it." So is it "extracting? Converting? What is SUPPOSED to happen create a new file in the folder? It doesn't look like its doing anything and its been a couple hours.

Oh yeah... when you mentioned, " ...and run the mdfextract command with the right parameters to extract the audio data from your mdf/mds files..." What did you mean by "the right parameters?" Maybe I did that wrong. Thanks for everything so far. I'm learning!

[xenopeek]

Well, perhaps the program is very slow. Could be. The -r would by default extract the entire CD instead of track by track, which might not be what you want. You could try first to do:

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./mdfextract -i file.mds

where you replace that "file.mds" at the end with the name of one of your .mds files.

Then perhaps do:

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./mdfextract -r -t 1 file.mds

which would I guess extract the first track.

So the output you showed is as expected. Job well done, you have compiled your first program from source As I shared, I don't have any .mds files myself, so can't test the program beyond getting to the point you also got to (it showing the help text)...

You don't need to, but if you want to become a little more comfortable on the command line then this is an excellent introduction: http://en.flossmanuals.net/command-line/

[Drumlind]

Thanks xenopeek for the command line link. So I let the terminal run all night, and I still cannot open the file, no do I see any new versions of the file anywhere, and the Terminal window closes so I know that it is finished doing whatever it was that it was doing.

I tried your suggestions from your most recent email and with both suggestions I get this in the terminal...

No command 'mdfextract' found, did you mean:
Command 'odfextract' from package 'libopenoffice-oodoc-perl' (universe)
mdfextract: command not found

So...what's next

Thanks again for the link! I'm learning so much just trying to open these darn files!

[xenopeek]

Eh, yes. Of course, you need to specify where the mdfextract file is located and I forgot that I edited the two commands above so they are now correct in my post.

[Drumlind]

Now it lust loops me back to...


usage: mdfextract [options] file.mds

options:
-i output mds info instead of extracting
-r extract raw track data
-s output to stdout instead of file
-t <num> extract single track (num > 0)
-q quiet, no output

...and when I type i, r, ot t 1, it just does the same thing all night long as before, which is nothing but when I go to close the teminal it says there is a process going.

[xenopeek]

Well, then I think you can conclude this program is not working as intended. How many .mdf/.mds files do you have? You might consider if it are just a few to borrow somebody's Windows laptop and use some Windows program to convert them. Possibly this will work: http://www.mdftoiso.com/.

[Drumlind]

It's an important seminar with a bunch of audio tracks and a couple dvd files. I have an old laptop with windows still on it... i'll probably load up Alcohol 120% and install a dvd burner on it... I was really hoping I could go all out with Linux though. I tried running that program on Linux with wine last night but it didn't work. Well my friend... you been AWESOME! Thanks so much for your help I actually learned a lot. Im really really surprised though that there's not a simple converting or burning program for mdf & mds files for Linux. I hope you have a great day and thanks again.

On second thought...I do remember seeing this from an old 2006 Unbuntu forum post but did not know what it meant, "...use cdemu to mount it...", do you think this is worth a try, whatever it is? If it a complicated process and not easy to explain, perhaps you can direct me where to learn about it?

THANKS XENOPEEK

[xenopeek]

cdemu is here: http://cdemu.sourceforge.net/. They have PPA that you can add to your system, so you can install it through the Software Manager: https://launchpad.net/~cdemu/+archive/ppa. It seems to have MDS support: http://cdemu.sourceforge.net/about/libmirage/

Currently supported image formats:
Alcohol 120% (MDS, MDX) image format
<rest of list cut>

cdemu "pretends" to be a CD-ROM drive, using an image file of a supported format for the data on the CD-ROM. So that might work?

[Bladeforce]

I know this is a way old thread but remember mdf supports multi track images as used by older games from the late 90's , iso DOES NOT so if you convert mdf to iso you will lose cd audio