Sorting old backups I found .mdf and .mds file pairs. These are not database files, they look like disc images from an old burning program. How do I open and extract files from them?
How to view an MDF disc image file for archive purposes?
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Barry Allen June 12, 2019
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Right, these MDF and MDS pairs are Alcohol 120% disc images, nothing to do with SQL Server despite the shared extension.
1
Mount them: recent Windows can mount ISO natively, but MDF needs a tool. Free virtual drive software like WinCDEmu mounts the MDF as a drive letter you can browse.
2
Extract without mounting: 7-Zip opens many MDF images directly, letting you pull files straight out.
3
Convert to ISO if you want a modern archive format: several free MDF to ISO converters do this so you drop the obsolete pair format.
7-Zip opened them directly and I pulled the files, then archived as ISO. Solved.