Skip to content
BranchesTags

Repository files navigation

Platform: Windows .NET 10.0 License: GPL v3 GitHub release

CHDMounter

Mount CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) CD/DVD images as virtual read-only drives on Windows. Supports 37 console/format modes (console types plus generic CUE/ISO/BIN/RAW formats), selectable by CLI alias.

Features

  • Mount CHD files as virtual drives using Dokan or WinFsp
  • 37 console/format modes — console types (ISO 9660, UDF, XDVDFS (Xbox), OperaFS (3DO), CD-i Green Book, HFS/HFS+ (Pippin), and more) plus generic CUE/ISO/BIN/WAV export modes
  • Virtual CUE/BIN/ISO/WAV export — 8 disc image export modes (2352/2048 × CUE/ISO, CUE/ISO/WAV, CUE/BIN, CUE/BIN/WAV) for emulators and burning tools
  • SingleFile ISO passthrough — single image.iso file for emulators that expect raw ISO (xemu, RPCS3)
  • Read-only — never modifies your CHD files
  • Automatic filesystem detection by track header — no manual setup needed for most discs
  • Command-line interface for scripting and frontend integration
  • WPF dark theme UI with console type dropdown, real-time log output, settings dialog
  • Settings with DPAPI encryption — persisted across sessions
  • Update checker — polls GitHub releases for new versions
  • Serilog structured logging to file and debug output
  • Single-file self-contained publish — distribute as one .exe
  • x64 and ARM64 support

Supported Filesystems

Console / Format CLI Alias Filesystem Notes
3DO 3do OperaFS Block-based directory chain, ISO 9660 fallback
Amiga CD amigacd ISO 9660
Amiga CD32 amigacd32 ISO 9660
Amiga CDTV amigacdtv ISO 9660
CD-i cdi Green Book Interleaved stream support, Path Table
CUE/BIN RAW 2048 cuebin2048 Virtual CUE + BIN at 2048 bytes/sector
CUE/BIN RAW 2352 cuebin2352 Virtual CUE + BIN at 2352 bytes/sector
CUE/BIN/WAV RAW 2048 cuebinwav2048 Virtual CUE + BIN + WAV audio tracks (2048-byte data)
CUE/BIN/WAV RAW 2352 cuebinwav2352 Virtual CUE + BIN + WAV audio tracks (2352-byte data)
CUE/ISO RAW 2048 cueiso2048 Virtual CUE sheet + ISO at 2048 bytes/sector
CUE/ISO RAW 2352 cueiso2352 Virtual CUE sheet + ISO at 2352 bytes/sector
CUE/ISO/WAV RAW 2048 cueisowav2048 Virtual CUE + ISO + WAV audio tracks (2048-byte data)
CUE/ISO/WAV RAW 2352 cueisowav2352 Virtual CUE + ISO + WAV audio tracks (2352-byte data)
FM Towns fmtowns ISO 9660
ISO 9660 iso9660 ISO 9660 / High Sierra Joliet/UTF-16BE, SUSP/Rock Ridge
ISO RAW 2048 isoraw2048 Raw sectors Entire CHD as single image.iso (2048-byte units)
ISO RAW 2352 isoraw2352 Raw sectors Entire CHD as single image.iso (2352-byte units)
Neo Geo CD neogeocd ISO 9660
Nuon nuon UDF → ISO 9660 fallback VM Labs Nuon DVD
PC Engine CD pcengine ISO 9660 Boot signature scan, fallback raw track files
PC-98 pc98 ISO 9660
PC-FX pcfx PC-FX ISO Dedicated byte-offset VD scanner
Pico pico ISO 9660 Sega Pico
Pippin pippin HFS → HFS+ → UDF → ISO Apple Bandai Pippin
PlayStation (Auto) psauto ISO 9660 Auto-detect PS1/PS2/PS3/PSP
PS1 ps1 ISO 9660 Track-level parsing, aggressive PVD scan
PS2 ps2 ISO 9660 CD/DVD auto-detection
PS3 ps3 UDF → ISO 9660 fallback Multi-extent large file support
PS3 ISO RAW 2352 isoraw2352 Virtual ISO passthrough Single image.iso for RPCS3
PSP psp ISO 9660 UMD image support
Sega Dreamcast segadreamcast ISO 9660 GD-ROM offset search (-45000, -150, 0, etc.)
Sega Genesis segagenesis ISO 9660
Sega Saturn segasaturn ISO 9660
X68000 x68000 ISO 9660 → UDF fallback
Xbox xbox XDVDFS Binary tree directory structure
Xbox 360 xbox360 XDVDFS XGD2/XGD3 offset detection
Xbox ISO RAW 2352 isoraw2352 Virtual ISO passthrough Single image.iso for xemu

Requirements

  • Windows 10 or later (x64 or ARM64)
  • .NET 10.0 Desktop Runtime (or self-contained build ships its own)
  • Dokan Use latest version — install Dokany
    or
  • WinFsp Use latest version — download WinFsp

Only one driver is needed. The Dokan executable uses Dokan; the WinFsp executable uses WinFsp. Both ship side-by-side.

Quick Start

Download

Grab the latest self-contained executables from Releases:

  • CHDMounter.exe

No installation required. Just download and run.

GUI Mode

CHDMounter.exe

Opens the main window. Click Browse to select a CHD file, pick a filesystem type from the dropdown, and click Mount. The drive appears in Explorer.

Command Line

CHDMounter.exe [/l] [/a] [/s:<alias>] <chd_file> [mount_point]
Argument Description
/l Launch Explorer after mount
/a Auto-select drive letter
/s:<alias> Select console system by alias (e.g. ps2, cuebin2352)
<chd_file> Path to the .chd file (required)
[mount_point] Drive letter/path for mount (optional, auto-picks if omitted)

Notes:

  • Arguments can be in any order
  • Flags are prefixed with /
  • A console alias may also be passed as a positional argument (e.g. CHDMounter.exe game.chd ps2)
  • If only <chd_file> is provided without flags, a dialog appears asking you to choose

Console Type Reference

You can specify the console type using a string alias (case-insensitive). Numeric indexes are not supported — the alias list below is defined in the VideoGameFileSystemParser library and is the single source of truth.

Console / Format CLI Alias
3DO 3do
Amiga CD amigacd
Amiga CD32 amigacd32
Amiga CDTV amigacdtv
CD-i cdi
CUE/BIN RAW 2048 cuebin2048
CUE/BIN RAW 2352 cuebin2352
CUE/BIN/WAV RAW 2048 cuebinwav2048
CUE/BIN/WAV RAW 2352 cuebinwav2352
CUE/ISO RAW 2048 cueiso2048
CUE/ISO RAW 2352 cueiso2352
CUE/ISO/WAV RAW 2048 cueisowav2048
CUE/ISO/WAV RAW 2352 cueisowav2352
FM Towns fmtowns
ISO 9660 iso9660
ISO RAW 2048 isoraw2048
ISO RAW 2352 isoraw2352
Neo Geo CD neogeocd
Nuon nuon
PC Engine CD pcengine
PC-98 pc98
PC-FX pcfx
Pico pico
Pippin pippin
PlayStation (Auto) psauto
PS1 ps1
PS2 ps2
PS3 ps3
PS3 ISO RAW 2352 isoraw2352
PSP psp
Sega Dreamcast segadreamcast
Sega Genesis segagenesis
Sega Saturn segasaturn
X68000 x68000
Xbox xbox
Xbox 360 xbox360
Xbox ISO RAW 2352 isoraw2352

Examples:

# Mount a PS2 game as drive M:
CHDMounter.exe /s:ps2 game.chd M:

# Mount an Xbox 360 game (auto-select drive letter)
CHDMounter.exe game.chd xbox360

# Mount a Dreamcast game and launch Explorer
CHDMounter.exe /l /s:segadreamcast game.chd

# Mount as virtual CUE/BIN (2352-byte sectors)
CHDMounter.exe /s:cuebin2352 disc.chd

# Mount with generic ISO 9660 parser
CHDMounter.exe /s:iso9660 data.chd N:

# Mount with console alias as a positional argument
CHDMounter.exe game.chd ps3

If no console type is specified, a dialog appears asking you to choose.

Build from Source

Prerequisites

How It Works

CHD Reading

CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) is MAME's lossless compression format for CD/DVD/HDD images. CHDMounter uses CHDSharp to read all five CHD versions (V1-V5) and all compression codecs:

  • General: zlib (deflate), LZMA, FLAC (headerless, 16-bit stereo), dynamic Huffman, Zstd
  • CD-sector: CDZL (zlib), CDLZ (LZMA), CDFL (FLAC), CDZS (Zstd) — with ECC regeneration
  • AV: AVHuff — audio+video Huffman for laserdisc/arcade captures

Sector Reading

The SectorReader maps logical block addresses (LBAs) to byte offsets within CHD hunks. It:

  1. Parses track metadata (CHT2/CHTR/CHGD tags) for multi-track CD images
  2. Maps LBA to CHD frame number using track offsets (handles GD-ROM 45000-LBA shift)
  3. Reads and caches the compressed hunk via ReadHunk()
  4. Detects sector mode (Mode 1 = 16-byte header, Mode 2 = 24-byte header) by scanning for the CD sync pattern 00 FF×10 00
  5. Strips headers to deliver 2048 bytes of user data per sector

File System Parsing

CHDMounter uses the VideoGameFileSystemParser library (v1.1.0, vendored into this solution as the VideoGameFileSystemParser project) to parse various console file systems from raw sectors and reconstruct directory trees. The console alias registry lives in the library and is the single source of truth for console selection.

Supported file systems include ISO 9660 (with Joliet/Rock Ridge), XDVDFS (Xbox), OperaFS (3DO), CD-i Green Book, UDF, and HFS/HFS+.

VFS Operations

The ChdContainer bridges the parsed FsNode tree to the Dokan/WinFsp VFS layer:

  • Dokan: ChdFs implements IDokanOperations — CreateFile resolves paths, ReadFile maps file offsets to sector reads, FindFiles lists directories, GetVolumeInformation reports "CHDFS" read-only volume.
  • WinFsp: ChdFs extends FileSystemBase — Open resolves paths and returns FileEntry as both file node and descriptor, Read copies sector data into native memory via Marshal.Copy, ReadDirectoryEntry enumerates children with . and ...

For CUE/BIN/ISO/WAV modes, the container generates virtual entries dynamically:

  • The .cue file contains standard FILE, TRACK, and INDEX descriptors built from CHD track metadata.
  • The .bin/.iso file maps reads to raw sector data (2352 or 2048 bytes per sector).
  • .wav files are generated per audio track with standard WAV headers.

For SingleFile mode, the container serves the entire decompressed CHD image as a single image.iso file via CHDFile.Read().

Differences between Dokan and WinFsp Variants

Aspect Dokan WinFsp
Driver Kernel-mode (Dokan.sys) User-mode (WinFsp)
NuGet DokanNet 2.3.0.3 winfsp.net 2.1.25156
FileSystem base IDokanOperations FileSystemBase
Admin mount Standard Cross-integrity folder mounts with permissive DACL

Both variants share the same core functionality and UI. Choose based on your driver preference.

Tester Application (CHDMounter_Tester)

WPF desktop application for batch testing and benchmarking CHD disc image parsing. Scans folders of .chd files, parses each one with a selected console file system parser, and generates summary reports with PDF export.

Features

  • Select a folder of CHD files and a target console type
  • Batch-parse every .chd file in the folder
  • Report success/failure, file count, directory count, volume size, and timing per file
  • View aggregated summary statistics (fastest, slowest, average, total throughput)
  • Export results to PDF with QuestPDF

Usage

  1. Launch CHDMounter_Tester.exe
  2. Select a folder containing .chd files
  3. Choose a console type from the dropdown
  4. Click Run Tests to begin batch parsing
  5. Click Export PDF to save results

Dependencies

NuGet Packages

Package Version Purpose
CHDSharp 1.2.0 MAME CHD format reader
coverlet.collector 10.0.1 Code coverage (Tests only)
DokanNet 2.3.0.3 Dokan virtual filesystem driver bindings
Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk 18.8.1 Test SDK (Tests only)
QuestPDF 2026.7.2 PDF report generation (Tester only)
Serilog 4.4.0 Structured logging
Serilog.Sinks.Debug 3.0.0 Visual Studio debug output logging
Serilog.Sinks.File 7.0.0 File-based log output
VideoGameFileSystemParser vendored Filesystem parser (project reference — see Build from Source)
winfsp.net 2.1.25156 WinFsp virtual filesystem driver bindings
WPF-UI 4.3.0 Modern WPF theming (Fluent/Win11 style)
xUnit 2.9.3 Test framework (Tests only)
xunit.runner.visualstudio 3.1.5 VS test adapter (Tests only)

Acknowledgments

License

This project is licensed under the GPLv3 License – see the LICENSE file for details.

About

Mount CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) CD/DVD images as virtual read-only drives on Windows. Supports 22 filesystem types across consoles and PC optical media.

www.purelogiccode.com/

Topics

chddokandokanyemulationemulatormamemount-drivevirtual-drivewinfsp

Resources

Readme
GPL-3.0 license
Activity
Custom properties

Stars

3 stars

Watchers

0 watching

Forks

0 forks
Report repository

Releases

Contributors

Languages