How to open a .MDS file online
No burning, no mounting, no extra software to install.
Pick your .MDS file
Drag it in or click to choose it. It opens here in seconds.
See what's on it
Read the volume name, when it was made, the file systems it uses and whether it can start a computer.
Browse and save
Step through the folders, preview text and images, and download any single file you need.
About .MDS files
What a .MDS file is, and where it comes from.
An MDS file is the small descriptor half of an Alcohol 120% or DAEMON Tools disc image. It holds track layout and copy-protection data, while the actual disc content sits in a paired .mdf file of the same name. To use it, mount both files with DAEMON Tools Lite, or convert the pair to ISO so Windows 10/11 can open it without any extra software. The .mds alone is useless without its .mdf.
Programs that open .MDS files
| Full name | Media Descriptor Sidecar (Alcohol 120% / DAEMON Tools disc image) |
|---|---|
| Developer | Alcohol Soft (Alcohol 120%); also used by DAEMON Tools (Disc Soft) |
| First released | Early 2000s (Alcohol 120%) |
| Category | Archives |
| MIME type | application/octet-stream |
| Signature | 4D 45 44 49 41 20 44 45 53 43 52 49 50 54 4F 52 "MEDIA DESCRIPTOR" |
Related viewers
Open what you find on the disc.
Can I open a 4 GB+ .MDS file?
Yes. The viewer never loads the whole file. It reads the disc's directory structure piece by piece, so even large DVD and Blu-ray images open in a second.
How do I know if an ISO is bootable?
Look at the Boot panel. If the image has an El Torito boot record, we show whether it boots on classic BIOS PCs, on UEFI computers, or both.
I have a .bin and a .cue file. Which one do I open?
Open the .bin file: it holds the data. The .cue file is a small text file describing the tracks; drop it on its own to see the track list.
Can I browse a virtual machine disk (VHD, VMDK)?
Today we show the disk details and partition table. Browsing NTFS, ext4 and other file systems inside virtual disks is on our roadmap.
Is anything uploaded?
No. Your .MDS file is read directly from your device by your browser.
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