I asked for the images from recent X-ray and MRI sessions, whereupon a CD arrived in the mail. Popping it into my desktop Linux box produced this directory listing:
ll /run/media/ed/Feb\ 21\ 2025/
total 146M
dr-xr-xr-x 2 ed ed 136 Feb 21 13:14 ./
drwxr-x---+ 3 root root 60 Mar 2 13:40 ../
-r--r--r-- 1 ed ed 146M Feb 21 13:14 -NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso
It seems whoever / whatever produced the CD copied the ISO image to the CD, rather than burning the ISO directly to the CD. As a result, the CD has one file.
Raise your hand if you’ve never done that.
Well, I was going to save the CD as an ISO file anyway, so I just copied it to the file server.
Attempting to mount it produces an odd result:
sudo mount -o loop "-NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso" /mnt/loop/
[sudo] password for ed: <make up your own>
mount: failed to set target namespace to ISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso: No such file or directory
Oh, right, starting a filename with a leading dash is never a Good Idea™.
Rename it:
mv -NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso
mv: invalid option -- 'N'
Try 'mv --help' for more information.
Which is why leading dashes are a Terrible Idea™.
Force the rename to happen:
mv ./-NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso
The same syntax works in the mount command, but it’s easier to solve the problem once and be done with it.
Now mount the file:
sudo mount NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso /mnt/loop
mount: /mnt/loop: WARNING: source write-protected, mounted read-only.
That’s entirely expected, because the whole filesystem is intended for a non-writeable CD.
What’s inside?
ll /mnt/loop/
ls: cannot open directory '/mnt/loop/': Permission denied
Why would that be?
ll /mnt
total 58K
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4.0K May 21 2023 ./
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4.0K Mar 2 13:43 ../
… omitted …
drwxrwx--- 4 496 495 2.0K Feb 21 13:13 loop/
… omitted …
Maybe 496 and 495 are the UID and GID of whatever created the CD?
Force it to my UID:
sudo umount /mnt/loop
[ed@shiitake tmp]$ sudo mount -o uid=ed NISLEY-DMBG8yMQcf8qXcVj.iso /mnt/loop
mount: /mnt/loop: WARNING: source write-protected, mounted read-only.
[ed@shiitake tmp]$ ll /mnt/loop
total 16K
drwxrwx--- 4 ed 495 2.0K Feb 21 13:13 ./
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 4.0K May 21 2023 ../
drwxrwx--- 4 ed 495 2.0K Feb 21 13:12 data/
drwxr-xr-x 5 ed 495 2.0K Feb 21 13:13 DICOM/
-rw-rw---- 1 ed 495 1.7K Feb 21 13:12 README.txt
-rw-rw---- 1 ed 495 3.2K Feb 21 13:12 view-studies.html
Now that’s more like it.
Finally, I can fire up Weasis to look at pretty DICOM images:
Apparently things looks suspicious around L4.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
Comments
2 responses to “Medical Image CD: FAIL”
Also, most if not all unix tools accept — (two dashes, since wp will probably mangle it) as “there are no more options, even if the next thing looks like one” .
At least with Manjaro, the double-dash flag disables tab completion for the rest of the line, thus tripping my fingers every time.
I’m absolutely sure I’ll fumble around the next time I get a CD from those folks, which I devoutly hope isn’t for a long time. :grin: