3

I'm running MATE 16.04 on an ASUS X550LA and have a 2.1Gb file named "image.dd" type "unknown". I tried opening it but nothing happened. Running man dd in the terminal returned Convert and copy a file

  1. What is it?
  2. Is it necessary?
  3. What effect would deleting it have?

Three questions in one I know but they are linked.

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

1) My best guess would be that it's an image file created with dd of some sort of media like a flash drive or memory card.

2 and 3) Whether it's necessary or not depends on your definition of necessary. The operating system should run just fine without it, however it may contain data that you'd rather keep.

You can test my theory easily by using the command parted image.dd

which will result in output similar to but probably not identical to this.

Using /home/me/Desktop/image.dd
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted)

issuing the command print at the (parted) prompt will provide output similar to but definitely not identical to this

Model:  (file)

Disk /home/me/Desktop/image.dd: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End    Size    File system  Name                          Flags
 1      1049kB  420MB  419MB   ntfs         Basic data partition          hidden, diag
 2      420MB   693MB  273MB   fat32        EFI system partition          boot
 3      693MB   827MB  134MB                Microsoft reserved partition  msftres
 4      827MB   470GB  469GB   ntfs         Basic data partition          msftdata
 5      470GB   470GB  891MB   ntfs                                       hidden, diag
 6      470GB   471GB  472MB   ntfs                                       hidden, diag
 7      471GB   500GB  29.2GB  ntfs         Basic data partition          hidden, msftdata

(parted)

once you have your output enter quit at the (parted) prompt to exit parted.

In your specific case, the image does not appear to have a partition table as shown above, but as it's an image of a storage device it has Sector Size info.

If you wish to peruse the content to insure you aren't deleting something you want, there are several answers here on how to mount an image as a loop device.

This is a fairly simple procedure and since there's no partition table you don't need an offset.

mount -o loop image.dd mountpoint where mountpoint is the location on the tree where you wish to mount it. You may wish to create a mountpoint in advance.

For example: 

mkdir /media/test 
mount -o loop image.dd /media/test
ls /media/test

To make the directory

loop mount the image file

and list the content at the root of the image

Improve this answer
4
  • Thank you Elder Geek for your prompt response, I did as you suggested and here is the result, which I do not understand. However I'll move the file "off" the computer onto a USB simply to free up the 2.2GB it is taking.
    – hal_v
    Jul 7, 2017 at 1:14
  • Error: /home/hal/image.dd: unrecognised disk label Model: (file) Disk /home/hal/image.dd: 2103MB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: unknown Disk Flags: (parted) q
    – hal_v
    Jul 7, 2017 at 1:19
  • @hal_v That looks like a raw disk image. flash drives and memory cards are often formatted without a partition table. It may contain a file system. You may wish to mount it via loopback and see what it contains. Updating answer.
    – Elder Geek
    Jul 7, 2017 at 2:56
  • You are welcome. The customary way to say thanks here is by accepting the most useful answer you receive (clicking the check mark) and up-voting answers that are helpful. Note that you can only accept one answer to your own question and the up-voting privilege becomes available once you've reached 15 reputation points. For more on privileges see askubuntu.com/help/privileges
    – Elder Geek
    Jul 7, 2017 at 3:20
1

image.dd could be the disk image file created by the TestDisk utility (used to recover deleted files) and deleting it does no harm to the system in this case just make sure it doesn't contain important files.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .