Mac HFS and HFS+ with MacOS SonomaAll Mac users, I think, know that Apple dropped the 32bit support starting with MacOS 10.15 Catalina.
The problem was not only that the 32bit apps ended to work, but ended also the option to mount old CDs, DVDs and their images (DMG, CDR, ISO, etc) on the desktop.
The best solution is, or was, to install MacOS Mojave in a partition or using UMS, VirtualBox or VMware Fusion to run Mojave or a previous OS and to mount the CDs or the CD images.
I know macFUSE is only a kernel extension but with a working implemented file system could help.
Looking around in Internet I discovered ‘FuseHFS for OSXFuse’, a file system that requires MacFUSE, and I tried it.
Well, on my iMac 27 Retina 5K 2020 (Intel), with MacOS Sonoma 14.3, now I am able to mount again on the desktop HFS and HFS+ CD images as well as real CDs or DVDs.
In details :
all CD images archived as .DMG, .ISO, .CDR, .Toast are mounted as only read if they are HFS and read/write if they are HFS+. .IMG are not mounted with an error.
real CDs and DVDs, if HFS+, are mounted.
real CDs, if HFS, are not mounted.
N.B.: if the CD is not mounted, there is a problem to eject it from the optical drive; the best solution is the terminal command /usr/bin/drutil eject
I can’t test this solution on a Silicon Mac, as well as under previous MacOS, but I think you can try it.
If not working, MacFUSE can be uninstalled easily.
These are the web addresses for both :
https://osxfuse.github.io MacFUSE 4.6.0 (install, give permission and reboot)
https://thejoelpatrol.github.io/fusehfs/ FuseHFS 0.1.5 (install and it should work)