DiskImageMounter

DiskImageMounter

Developer(s)	Apple Computer
Stable release	10.8 / June 27, 2012
Operating system	Mac OS X
Type	Disk image emulator
Website	www.apple.com

DiskImageMounter is the utility that handles mounting disk volume images in Mac OS X, starting with version 10.3. DiskImageMounter works by either launching a daemon to handle the disk image or by contacting a running dæmon and have it mount the disk.

Like BOMArchiveHelper, DiskImageMounter has no GUI when double-clicked; doing so does nothing. The only GUI the program ever displays is a window with a progress bar and mount options (cancel or skip verification) or an error report if it could not mount the image. It is found in /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app.

Starting with version 10.7, Apple "removed double-click support for images using legacy metadata."^[1] DiskImageMounter will not be able to open .img (NDIF only), .smi (self mounting), .dc42 (Disk Copy 4.2), and .dart (DART) disk image formats that was previously supported in version 10.6 and earlier.

Image formats supported

DiskImageMounter supports a variety of disk image file types:^[2]

• Apple Disk Image (.dmg, com.apple.disk-image)
• UDIF disk images (.udif, com.apple.disk-image-udif); UDIF segment (.devs, .dmgpart, com.apple.disk-image-udif-segment)
• NDIF disk image^{[nb 1]} (.ndif, .img, com.apple.disk-image-ndif); NDIF disk image segment (.imgpart, com.apple.disk-image-ndif-segment)
• self mounting image^{[nb 1]} (.smi, com.apple.disk-image-smi)
• DVD/CD-R master image (.toast, .dvdr, .cdr, com.apple.disk-image-cdr, com.roxio.disk-image-toast)
• disk image segment (dmgpart)^[2]
• Disk Copy 4.2 disk image^{[nb 1]} (.dc42, .diskcopy42, com.apple.disk-image-dc42)
• DART disk image^{[nb 1]} (.dart, com.apple.disk-image-dart)
• raw disk image (OSTypes: devr, hdrv, DDim, com.apple.disk-image-raw)
• PC drive container (OSTypes: OPCD, com.apple.disk-image-pc)
• ISO image (.iso, public.iso-image)
• sparse disk image (.sparseimage, com.apple.disk-image-sparse, .sparsebundle)

Notes

1. Mac OS Classic legacy disk image format supported by DiskImageMounter under Mac OS X versions 10.3—10.6^[1] As of version 10.9, hdiutil can still convert these formats but unable to open or write them.

References

1. "hdiutil(1) Mac OS X Manual Page". Apple inc. Archived from the original on 2014-06-25. Retrieved 2014-09-03.
2. /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app/Contents/Info.plist

See also

• Disk Copy, this program's predecessor.