In this guide, you’ll find instructions on How to open or use MDF files on Windows.
A Windows 11 device has been used for this tutorial. You can also follow this guide to use or open MDF files on Windows 10, Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows 7.
Upon downloading Windows 10 from Microsoft website, you will notice that the downloaded file is an ISO image file if you look at it carefully.
It would be fair to say that the ISO is a universal disk image format. The ISO file format is natively supported by Microsoft Windows.
You can burn the Windows or any other ISO file to DVD without any additional third-party DVD burning software.
You can browse the content of the ISO image file by mounting it as a virtual DVD drive. It is also possible to copy the content of the ISO image file.
MDF and ISO are similar formats. MDF disk was developed for Alcohol 120%. Windows 11, Windows 10 and other old Windows versions don’t support MDF file type.
The MDF Disk image format is used less and less these days in DVDs, Blu-rays, and other media. But back in the old days, MDF disk images were used to distribute third-party programs and games and other things.
You need to use a third-party image file processing tool to extract content from MDF files. You can use PowerISO, Magic ISO and other programs to mount or extract MDF image files.
If you want to just extract MDF files, You don’t need any image processing tool. Winrar or 7zip can be used to extract MDF files.
Suggested – How To Extract ISO File In Windows 10/8 Without any Software?
If you have multiple MDF files and there is not enough disk space on your device, you will have to use software like Daemon Tools Lite to use the content of MDF files.
Watch Video Tutorial
Download WinRar
We are going to use WinRar to extract the content of this MDF file. You can use 7Zip or any other file archiver utility. Download WinRar from here and install it.
How To Extract .MDF Files With WinRar?
Disclaimer – This method does not work in most cases.
After Winrar installation, Right-click on the MDF file and open with WinRar. If you use Windows 10, 7 or Windows 8 and you are accustomed to using the conventional-style right-click context menu, Click on Show more option to access conventional context menu.
Click on Open With and then click Choose another app to locate WinRar.
Click More apps.
If you don’t find WinRar click on Look for another app on this PC and locate Winrar. By default, WinRar is installed in Program Files.
After opening the MDF file with WinRar, Click the extract button.
Choose the location, where WinRar will extract content of the MDF file and click OK.
WinRar has successfully extracted and you can use the content.
How To Mount MDF Files As Virtual Drive On Windows 11/10/8/7?
It takes a while and requires disk space to extract the content of MDF files. You can swiftly install games, programs and other things from MDF files by mounting them as a virtual drive.
We will use Daemon Tools to mount a MDF file. This image processing software is offered in free and paid versions. The free version is enough for this purpose.
Download Daemon Tools Lite
You can download the Daemon Tools Lite version from here and then install it.
How To Use Daemon To Mount MDF Files As Virtual Drive?
When Daemon Tool is installed, it automatically becomes the default virtual drive. Double click on a MDF file, it will automatically mount the MDF file and open content in the MDF file.
As you can see, This MDF file contains a classic game, which we can now install without extracting. The Virtual DVD drive saves you a lot of time and disk space.
Final Words
Hopefully, you find suggested solutions to open or use MDF files useful and informative.
Use the comment box to contact us. If you know of any other method, or team Soft Suggester could not explain any crucial points properly. We will try our best to assist you.
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