How do I open this android .img file?

[Cody Wright1]

The .img file is not recognized by 7-zip, Poweriso, Winrar, or Imgburn. The file format is not supported. I know for a fact that the file is not corrupted because I can use it to successfully flash my Cobalt Tab S800 tablet back to stock using Livesuite. I also know that it is not in the ext2, ext4, tar, YAFFS2 or tar.ext4 file format.
I acquired it from a person on XDA developers who emailed the manufacturer of the tablet for the stockrom.
I want to open the file so that I can make some modifications and then reflash it to my tablet.
I might be wrong about it not being any of the mentioned file formats but I tried like ten programs and they all gave me the same basic error "file format not supported". The rom is stock Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4.

I don't know how linking is handled on this site, but I really need some help with this. So here is the file and if you find a way to decompress, extract, or unpack the img please let me know.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1e2t6cgvjm2in7l/cobalttabs800.img

 

[zedorda]

Are you using a Linux system or a Windows system to modify the .img?

 

[dctokyo]

have you tried using WinCDEmu?

 

[Cody Wright1]

I'm using windows. But i'm willing to dual boot if it's necessary.

 

[Cody Wright1]

I get the same file format error with Wincdemu. I don't think this file is a disk image file but rather just shares the same file extension.

 

[Justin B2]

I get the same file format error with Wincdemu. I don't think this file is a disk image file but rather just shares the same file extension.

Have to mount and open in Linux. I just use virtualbox and installed ubuntu in it, but you can also just dual boot.

 

[Tom Neal]

Mounting Android .img files on Windows
You will need:

7-Zip to extract the image.
sgs2toext4 to convert the image
DiskInternals Linux Reader to open and extract the files.
Java SDK to run the converter.
Steps

Using 7-Zip, open your factory image file. You might have to dig around in the facotry to find what you need. You might see a file ending in .tar. Double click to open it. You will see some files ending in .img and one or more files ending in .zip. Open the .zip. You should see several files ending in .img. The one we want is system.zip. Drag that out to your desktop (or anywhere you want to put it).

Double click sgs2toext4 and it should launch and ask you to drop your image file in the window. Grab your system file and drop it it in. It will begin converting immediately.

Once it’s done, launch Linux Reader and drag system.ext4.img onto it. You will see a drive named something like “Linux Ext Volume 1.” Now just highlight the files you need, right click, and save. Browse to where you want to save the files.

Done. courtesy of mfratto on tumblr

 

[Gayos24]

Don't work for system.img file from galaxy s6

 

[epetroka]

Hey did you ever find the solution to this issue?

 

[Ken Adi]

May you can use free tool, Linux IMG Reader from www.diskinternals.com.
Mount the .img file as ordinary Windows IMG with this tool.

DL : https://www.diskinternals.com/download/zd1496753679417/Linux_Reader.exe

 

[Aniruth Dinesh]

The Android's boot.img isn't the standard .IMG thing, windows will not be able to mount the image as there is no recognisable file system in there. You have to use unpacking and repacking tools to work with that boot.img.

 

[Rukbat]

Everyone not in the industry should remember one thing:

The developer of a file is under no constraint to use, or not use, any particular extension for any file. While .img is usually the image of a DVD, or in the Android world, a bootable file, it can be anything. The fact that it ends in .img doesn't mean that any program that opens .img file will open any particular .img file. If you can't boot the phone with the file (TWRP, for instance comes in an .img format, so you can boot it, then use it to install the TWRP.zip file, which is the same thing, but in a permanent format).

If you're going to try to play with Android .img files, at least learn Linux (as Cody Wright1 evidently has). That's where you'll be working - in the operating system of the phone.