MOUNT

MOUNT.COM is a command inside DOSBox that can connect physical folders and drives to virtual drives inside DOSBox. The mounted drive does not automatically refresh files changed out side of DOSBox. You can refresh these files on all mounted drives by activating the Swap Image event (Hot key: Ctrl F4) to have access to changed files automatically when, for example, the drive is mapped as a floppy.

When you enter the command MOUNT from the DOSBox Z:\> prompt you should see:

Z:\>MOUNT
Current mounted drives are:
Drive Z is mounted as Internal Virtual Drive

By default, the MOUNT command will not be recognized at the C:\> prompt.

To mount a folder as a drive, follow this basic template:

MOUNT [Drive-Letter] [Local-Directory]

The local directory can be specified relative to the working directory from which DOSBox was started.

To unmount a drive, follow this basic template:

MOUNT -u [Drive-Letter]

Usage examples

Windows

Mounting the working directory from which DOSBox was started

Z:\>MOUNT C .

Mounting a specific folder from your hard drive

Z:\>MOUNT C C:\DOSGAMES

Mounting a specific folder and setting the amount of free space for a drive

Z:\>MOUNT C C:\DOSGAMES -freesize 1024

Mounting a floppy drive

Z:\>MOUNT A A:\ -t floppy

Mounting a CD ROM drive

Z:\>MOUNT D D:\ -t cdrom

Extra CD ROM options

-t [floppy|cdrom] Define how the mounted folder should behave to the emulated operating system.
-usecd [drive #]  For direct hardware emulation ie: audio playback, etc.
-cd = Generate a list of local CD ROM drive's "drive #" values
-label [name] = Set the volume name of the drive (all caps)
-ioctl = Lowest level of hardware access (Win 2K, XP and Linux)...follows the -usecd command

Z:\>MOUNT D D:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -ioctl -label GAME_CD

Mounting an ISO-File as volume

Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\Images\MyImage.iso -t iso

Mounting a CUE/BIN-Pair as volume

If the game plays additional music tracks from the cd (mixed mode), you can still mount it as an image file. Since ISO can only contain pure data, the image has to be in the CUE/BIN format. You mount it with

Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\Images\MyImage.cue -t iso

The BIN-file has to be in the same folder as the CUE-file. It is also possible to use a cuescheet in combination with an ISO and compressed audio tracks in OGG or MP3 format.

Mounting multiple images (ISO or CUE/BIN)

Z:\>IMGMOUNT E C:\Images\MyImage1.iso C:\Images\MyImage2.iso -t iso

When mounting multiple images (useful for any application which requires discs to be swapped while it is running), you can then switch between the mounted disk-images by pressing Ctrl+F4 (by default) while your application is running.

Linux

Z:\>MOUNT C ~/DOSGAMES

Z:\>MOUNT D /MEDIA/CDROM/ -T CDROM

Users of the current version of Ubuntu (9.10 Karmic Koala) may notice that the above command doesn't work. This is because CD-ROMs are mounted based on their label and do not share a common mount point. Open the CD-ROM in Nautilus (or your preferred file manager) to determine its label. Use this command instead, replacing values as appropriate for your system:

Z:\>MOUNT D /media/CD_LABEL/ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -ioctl

Z:\>IMGMOUNT E ~/IMAGES/MYIMAGE.ISO -T ISO

Note that the Linux path is absolute and case-sensitive. If you insert a disc in the CD ROM or DVD ROM drive and mount it on your Linux system, or have it set up to auto-mount when the disc is inserted, then use Nautilus to browse to the /media directory, you will see the label of the CD as a folder therein. For example, a DOOM II disc shows up as /media/DOOM2_V17A. The disc label in this example is "DOOM2_V17A".

Mac OSX

Z:\>MOUNT C ~/DOSGAMES

Z:\>MOUNT D "/Volumes/Panzer General" -t cdrom

The quotes around pathname can be omitted if CD name has no special characters.

Z:\>IMGMOUNT D ~/Documents/IMAGE.toast -t iso

Using your mounted drive

To change to the newly mounted virtual drive simply type

[Drive-Letter]:

For example (If you mounted a Local-Directory to the Drive-Letter C)

Z:\>C: