BIN, ISO, CUE, IMG, MDF and MDS explained: what each format is and when to use it.
MDF and MDS are a pair of files that describe a disc image together. The MDF file holds the image data, and the MDS file holds the track and session information that describes how that data is organised. WinBin2Iso can convert MDF to ISO, which is useful when you want a single file that Windows…
A BIN file is a file with the extension .bin, and that extension alone tells you very little. In the disc-image world, a BIN file is a raw image of a CD or DVD, usually paired with a CUE file. In other contexts, a BIN file can be firmware for a device, a data file…
A CUE file is a small text file that describes the track layout of a disc image. It contains no disc data itself. Instead, it tells mounting and burning tools which data file to use, what kind of tracks it holds, and where each track starts. If you have a BIN file, the CUE file…
If you have a disc image and you are not sure what to do with it, start here: for a data disc, ISO is usually the most convenient format because Windows 10 and 11 can mount it natively, while BIN is the raw original that often needs converting. CUE is not an image at all,…
