Winternals ERD COMMANDER PRO 1.03 User Manual
ERD Commander
version 1.03
User’s Guide
Winternals Software LP
3101 Bee Caves Road, Suite 150
Austin, Texas 78746
(512) 330-9130
(512) 330-9131 Fax
www.winternals.com
Copyright © 1999 Winternals Software LP
ERD Commander
Version 1.03
Table of Contents
1 Introduction................................................................................... 1
1.1 ERD Commander Functionality......................................................1
1.2 Upgrading to ERD Commander Professional.................................1
1.3 Overview of Use.............................................................................2
2 ERD Commander Setup............................................................... 4
2.1 Requirements ................................................................................4
2.2 Creating the Boot Diskettes ...........................................................4
2.3 ERD Commander for the DEC Alpha Edition.................................5
2.4 Adding Th i rd-Party Drivers.............................................................5
3 Starting ERD Commander ........................................................... 7
3.1 Booting Up.....................................................................................7
3.2 Sample Screen..............................................................................7
4 The Command-line Environment ................................................ 8
4.1 Overview........................................................................................8
4.2 Command-line Editing....................................................................9
5 The Command Set...................................................................... 10
5.1 ACCESS......................................................................................12
5.2 ATTRIB........................................................................................13
5.3 CD/CHDIR...................................................................................13
5.4 CLS..............................................................................................13
5.5 COPY..........................................................................................14
5.6 DEL/ERASE.................................................................................14
5.7 DIR..............................................................................................15
5.8 EXIT/QUIT...................................................................................16
5.9 HELP...........................................................................................16
5.10 MAP.............................................................................................17
5.11 MKDIR/MD...................................................................................18
5.12 MORE/TYPE................................................................................18
5.13 MOVE..........................................................................................18
5.14 RENAME/REN.............................................................................19
5.15 RMDIR/RD...................................................................................19
5.16 VERSION/VER ............................................................................19
5.17 XCOPY........................................................................................20
6 Troubleshooting......................................................................... 21
7 Technical Support...................................................................... 24
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1 Introduction
Welcome t o ERD Commander, the advanced system utility that finally brings
boot-floppy functionality to W indows NT. When problems arise in Windows
3.1 or Windows 95 that render a system unbootable, there is always the
possibility of booting off of a DOS floppy disk so that the drives of the
machine can be accessed for repair and salvage. In the past, Windows NT
administrators have gone without this recovery option.
1.1 ERD Commander Functionality
ERD Commander enables you to boot NT off of a floppy disk in order to
access and repair a dead NT installation. It is a command-line shell that runs
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off of a set of NT boot disks giving you full access to non-bootable NT
systems with a robust set of familiar command-line file manipulation tools.
Because ERD Commander relies on a standard set of NT boot floppies, any
NT system is accessible, and because ERD Commander runs on top of NT,
all NT file systems, including FAT, NTFS, and CDFS are visible. ERD
Commander has no reliance on data located on a system’s hard disk f or it to
boot and run – NT is actually booted on the floppies. W indows NT does not
even have to be present on the computer in order to use ERD Commander to
access the computer’s drives.
1.2 Upgrading to ERD Commander Professional
ERD Commander Professional Edition augments the basic set of ERD
Commander functions with advanced features and additional commands.
These include:
♦= Support for fault - tolerant drives (striped sets, volume sets, and
mirrors)
♦= Allows replacement of lost administrative passwords with the
PASSWORD com mand
♦= Supports the CHKDSK command for r epair ing corrupted drives
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♦= Allows Device and Service startup options to be reconfigured in the
registry (Boot, System, Automatic, Manual, or Disabled) in order to
enable/disable defective drivers
♦= Built in FAT32 support
♦= Built in EXPAND functionality for decompressing and copying files
from the NT Inst allat ion CD- ROM, or restoring backup registry hives
created by RDISK
An upgrade is available for registered users of ERD Commander to ERD
Commander Professional.
1.3 Overview of Use
ERD Commander can be used as a tool in solving problems such as:
Removing or Replacing Buggy Drivers
You can use ERD Commander to delete the image f iles of drivers or services
that, because of a bug or m isconfiguration, prevent NT fr om booting.
Updating Out-of-Date System Files
Incorrectly applying service packs or system software updates can cause
system DLLs to become out of sync with each other, preventing NT from
booting successfully. ERD Com mander can copy up-to-date versions of old
files from f loppy disk s or CD- ROMs onto a system.
Correcting Misconfigured NTFS Security
If security attributes that are too restrictive are applied to cert ain system files
or directories on NTFS boot drives, NT will become unbootable. ERD
Commander includes a special command, ACCESS, which unlocks otherwise
inaccessible files or directories.
Updating Locked Files
Once NT is up-and-running m any system files cannot be replaced because
the system keeps them locked. ERD Commander makes it possible to update
such files because it runs when NT is off -line.
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Correcting Registry Problems
A number of NT boot problems are the result of misconfigured Registry
values. With ERD Commander you can copy Registry hives (located under
<winnt>\system32\config) off the system to a floppy disk or other writeable
removable media for m odification on another NT m achine (using Regedt32’s
Hive loading capability). Modified hives can then be copied back.
Copying Important Files off of a Dead System
ERD Commander enables you to access files on an NT system t hat fails to
boot. Important f iles can be salvaged onto a floppy disk or other removable
media.
Note that ERD Commander is not intended t o resolve disk corruption errors,
and that only drives that are consistent enough t o be recog nized by Windows
NT file systems will be accessible with ERD Commander.
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2 ERD Commander Setup
2.1 Requirements
ERD Commander requires the Microsoft Windows NT© 4.0 installation CDROM to create a set of boot disket tes. The disk s can be used to access both
NT 4.0 and 3.51 systems.
You will need three blank floppy diskettes. Optionally, you can supply an
existing set of Windows NT Setup diskettes, which ERD Commander will
modify. Please note that such modif ication is permanent; you will not be able
to reinstall NT from t hose disks in the future.
Additionally, you must have local administrator access to the machine on
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which you are installing ERD Commander.
2.2 Creating the Boot Diskettes
When the ERD Com mander Setup program is executed, it will allow you to
create a set of W indows NT boot floppies conf igured with ERD Commander.
©
You will be prompted for the Microsoft Windows NT
and for the three floppy disket tes.
The Setup program will install two versions of the boot floppy creator onto
your hard drive. The 32–bit version is the program that is run dur ing t he initial
Setup. The 16–bit version allows you to configure boot floppies with ERD
Commander from a DOS boot f loppy or f rom Windows 3.1. This is necessary
in cases where your Windows NT installation is non–bootable and you do not
have access to a second NT machine or to Windows 95.
4.0 Installation CD-ROM
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2.3 ERD Commander for the DEC Alpha Edition
The ERD Commander Setup progr am will allow you to create a set of Alpha
NT boot floppies that are configured with ERD Commander. The Setup
program will also allow you to install the ERD Commander boot f iles into a
directory on a hard drive or removable media. Follow your ARC OS loader
instructions to initiate a boot of ERD Commander, specifying “SETUPLDR” as
the boot file. Most ARC OS loaders accept the command “A: SETUPLDR” for
booting off a floppy.
After the installation has complet ed you can run the Setup program from the
ERD Commander program gr oup to create additional sets of diskett e set s .
Portions of Alpha NT boot disk creation copyright BEI, makers of UltraBac
backup software for Windows NT (http://www.ultrabac.com).
2.4 Adding Third-Party Drivers
Some systems have non-standard SCSI disk drives that require third-party
drivers to function under Windows NT. A set of ERD Commander boot
diskettes will not prompt you to specify such drivers like the standard
Windows NT boot diskettes do. However, it is possible to add third-party
SCSI device drivers to ERD Commander boot diskettes by following the
procedure outlined below. Note that this is not a supported option, but
presented here for your convenience.
Copy the driver(s) to floppy #3 and edit the txtsetup. sif file, which located on
floppy #1. Add a line for each driver in the f o llowing thr ee sections:
1. Under the [SourceDisksFiles] heading:
oemdrvr.sys = 1,,,,,,_3,4,1
2. Under the [SCSI.Load] heading
oemdrvr = oemdrvr.sys,4
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3. Under the [SCSI] heading
oemdrvr = "HAL 9000 SCSI Host Adapter"
Enter as shown above, replacing ”oemdrvr” with the name of the third-part y
driver that you need to add. The form at should match that of other entries in
each section.
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