ERD Commander 2000 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 © 2002 Winternals Software LP ERD Commander 2000 Table of Contents 1 2 3 Introduction................................................................................... 1 Overview of Use............................................................................ 2 ERD Commander 2000 Setup ...................................................... 4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 Requirements ................................................................................4 Setup Overview..............................................................................5 Installation Media ...........................................................................5 Installation Files .............................................................................7 FAT32 Support ..............................................................................8 Service Pack Upgrade ...................................................................9 OEM Drivers ................................................................................10 Password Protection ....................................................................11 File Installation.............................................................................12 4 Starting ERD Commander 2000................................................. 16 4.1 4.2 Booting Up ...................................................................................16 Sample Screen ............................................................................16 5 The Command-line Environment .............................................. 17 5.1 5.2 Overview......................................................................................17 Command-line Editing..................................................................18 6 The Command Set ...................................................................... 19 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 ACCESS ......................................................................................22 ATTRIB........................................................................................23 BATCH ........................................................................................23 CD/CHDIR ...................................................................................24 CHKDSK......................................................................................24 CLS..............................................................................................24 COMPRESS ................................................................................25 COPY ..........................................................................................26 DEL/ERASE.................................................................................27 DEVICE .......................................................................................28 DIR ..............................................................................................29 EDIT.............................................................................................30 EXIT/QUIT ...................................................................................30 EXPAND ......................................................................................31 FTDISK ........................................................................................31 HELP ...........................................................................................31 KEYBOARD .................................................................................32 LOGFILE......................................................................................32 MAP .............................................................................................33 Page i Winternals Software LP ERD Commander 2000 6.20 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 6.25 6.26 6.27 6.28 6.29 6.30 6.31 6.32 MKDIR/MD...................................................................................34 MORE ..........................................................................................34 MOVE ..........................................................................................34 PASSWORD ................................................................................35 REG/REGEDIT ............................................................................36 REGISTRY/REGLOAD ................................................................37 RENAME/REN .............................................................................37 RESTORE....................................................................................38 RMDIR/RD ...................................................................................39 SERVICE .....................................................................................39 TYPE ...........................................................................................40 VERSION/VER ............................................................................40 XCOPY ........................................................................................41 7 8 Troubleshooting ......................................................................... 42 Technical Support ...................................................................... 43 Appendix: Creating a Golden Hawk Bootable CD-ROM................ 44 Winternals Software LP Page ii ERD Commander 2000 1 Introduction 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. This boot-floppy approach to system recovery is often the only way to correct problems that even "automatic" system repair utilities fail to correct. Previously, Windows NT/2000 administrators went without this recovery option. Now, ERD Commander 2000 brings boot functionality to unbootable Windows NT and Windows 2000 systems. ERD Commander 2000 enables you to boot Windows NT/2000 not only from a set of floppy disks, but also from a CD-ROM or from the system's hard disk in order to access and repair a damaged or dead NT/2000 installation. It is a command-line shell that provides you with full access to non-bootable systems with a set of familiar command-line file manipulation tools. Any Windows NT/2000 system is accessible with ERD Commander 2000, and all file systems ­ including FAT, NTFS, and CDFS ­ are visible. Note that ERD Commander 2000 does not rely on data located on a system's hard disk for it to boot and run ­ Windows NT/2000 can actually be booted from floppies or CD-ROM. The operating system does not even have to be present on the computer in order to use ERD Commander 2000 to access the machine's drives. Winternals Software LP Page 1 ERD Commander 2000 2 Overview of Use ERD Commander 2000 can be used as a tool in solving problems such as: Enabling and Disabling Services and Drivers You can list and modify the start types of a system's drivers and services with ERD Commander 2000. This makes it easy to disable a driver or service that, because of a bug or misconfiguration, is preventing a system from booting. Editing Registry Keys A number of Windows NT/2000 boot problems are the result of misconfigured Registry values. ERD Commander 2000 will let you search and edit the entire HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM registry tree. 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. In many cases this can prevent Windows NT/2000 from booting successfully. ERD Commander 2000 can copy up-to-date versions of old files from floppy disks or CD-ROMs onto a system. Correcting Misconfigured NTFS Security If security attributes that are too restrictive are applied to certain system files or directories on NTFS boot drives, Windows NT/2000 will become unbootable. ERD Commander 2000 includes a special command, ACCESS, which unlocks otherwise inaccessible files or directories so that Windows NT/2000 can access them. Updating Locked Files Once Windows NT/2000 is up-and-running many system files cannot be replaced because the system keeps them locked. ERD Commander 2000 makes it possible to update such files because it runs when Windows NT/2000 is off-line and the files are not open. Winternals Software LP Page 2 ERD Commander 2000 Regaining Access to a System That You've Been Locked Out Of ERD Commander 2000 allows you to list the accounts for a Windows NT/2000 system and to change their passwords, including Administrator accounts. Copying Important Files off of a Dead System Compress and copy important files into CAB files for transfer to another system by floppy disk or other removable media using ERD Commander 2000. Extracting Compressed Files ERD Commander 2000 makes it possible to extract compressed files on a Windows NT/2000 distribution CD to a hard drive from within the ERD Commander 2000 program. Running CHKDSK on Corrupt Drives Consistency-check and repair hard drives using the CHKDSK command under ERD Commander 2000. Supporting FAT32 Drives ERD Commander 2000 includes built-in support for FAT32 drives, allowing access to data on Windows 98 disks in a dual-boot system. Note that ERD Commander 2000 is not intended to resolve disk corruption errors other than those correctable with CHKDSK. Only drives that are consistent enough to be recognized by Windows NT/2000 file systems will be accessible with ERD Commander 2000. Winternals Software LP Page 3 ERD Commander 2000 3 ERD Commander 2000 Setup 3.1 Requirements ERD Commander 2000 can be configured to boot from a set of floppy disks, from a CD-ROM (which you burn yourself), or from the system's hard disk. All three types of ERD Commander 2000 installations require the Microsoft Windows NT© 4.0/2000 installation CD-ROM (Server or Workstation). A Windows NT/2000 system with a diskette drive and approximately 1MB of hard disk space are also required. Additionally, you must have local administrator access to the machine on which you are installing ERD Commander 2000. If you choose to create a set of boot diskettes, you will need four blank formatted 1.44MB floppy diskettes if you are creating an installation for Windows NT 4.0. If you are creating an installation for Windows 2000, you will need five blank formatted 1.44MB floppy diskettes. If you choose to create a bootable CD-ROM you will need a CD-Writer and appropriate CD-ROM burning software. The software must support the creation of bootable CD-ROMs that use a Custom boot record. (One choice is Golden Hawk's CRDWIN: www.goldenhawk.com). Winternals Software LP Page 4 ERD Commander 2000 3.2 Setup Overview You build an ERD Commander 2000 installation by running the ERD Commander 2000 Setup Wizard, which guides you through the setup process. (See Figure 3-1) Figure 3-1 3.3 Installation Media The ERD Commander 2000 Setup Wizard will prompt you for your preferred installation method. If you elect to boot from floppy disks you will require four blank diskettes if you are creating an installation for Windows NT 4.0, and five blank diskettes if you are creating an installation for Windows 2000. You can also elect to create a bootable CD-ROM. In order to use this option you must have a CD-Writer and appropriate CD-ROM burning software. The software must support the creation of bootable CD-ROMs that use a Custom boot record. (One choice is Golden Hawk's CRDWIN: Winternals Software LP Page 5 ERD Commander 2000 www.goldenhawk.com). Creating a bootable CD-ROM will allow you to boot ERD Commander 2000 more quickly than when booting from floppy disks. It is also a convenient means of creating a disaster recovery CD-ROM on which you can place system images or other files that you might want to use to recover or restore a system. Finally, you can install ERD Commander 2000 directly on the hard disk of a system. When installed on the hard disk, you will have the option to run ERD Commander 2000 each time your system boots (an entry for it is added to your BOOT.INI file). (See Figure 3-2) Figure 3-2 Winternals Software LP Page 6 ERD Commander 2000 3.4 Installation Files ERD Commander 2000 requires files that are shipped as part of the Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 installation CD-ROM. You must provide the path to the \I386 directory of the installation CD-ROM, or a directory containing these files. (See Figure 3-3) If you intend to use ERD Commander 2000 to repair systems running Windows NT 4.0 you should use a Windows NT 4.0 installation CD-ROM. If you intend to use ERD Commander 2000 to repair systems running Windows 2000 you should use a Windows 2000 installation CD-ROM. However, you can also use a Windows NT 4.0 installation to access Windows 2000 systems if you update the installation to use Service Pack 4 or higher. Figure 3-3 Winternals Software LP Page 7 ERD Commander 2000 3.5 FAT32 Support If you are creating a Windows NT 4.0 installation and installing onto floppy diskettes, you have the option of including support for accessing FAT32 volumes. FAT32 volumes are used by Windows 95/98 and Windows 2000, but are not normally accessible from Windows NT 4.0. (See Figure 3-4) If you are creating a CD-ROM or hard disk installation then support for FAT32 is always enabled automatically. When you are installing onto a set of floppy disks the additional driver required for FAT32 support will require you to insert two of the boot diskettes an extra time, prolonging the boot process. Figure 3-4 Winternals Software LP Page 8 ERD Commander 2000 3.6 Service Pack Upgrade Using Service Pack 4 or higher will enable ERD Commander 2000 to access IDE drives that are 8GB and larger (see Q197667). Service Pack 4 also includes an updated NTFS driver that allows ERD Commander 2000 to access NTFS volumes on Windows 2000 systems. If you have the Service Pack on CD-ROM you can simply browse to the I386 directory of the CD-ROM. If you downloaded the Service Pack and have it in compressed format, select the "Extract Service Pack to Folder..." button and the service pack files will be extracted for you. Then select the folder to which you extracted the files. (See Figure 3-5.) If you are performing a Windows 2000 installation you will not see this screen. Figure 3-5 Winternals Software LP Page 9 ERD Commander 2000 3.7 OEM Drivers If you work with systems that use SCSI adapters that Windows NT/2000 does not natively support (i.e., hardware that requires additional drivers to be added for Windows NT/2000 to use it) then you can add those OEM drivers to ERD Commander 2000 .To add an OEM driver, simply enter the path the driver (the driver file should end in. SYS) or browse to it, and press the Add button. (See Figure 3-6) If you are installing ERD Commander 2000 onto floppy disks then adding additional drivers may cause ERD Commander 2000 to request you to insert the floppy disks additional times during the boot process. Figure 3-6 Winternals Software LP Page 10 ERD Commander 2000 3.8 Password Protection Because ERD Commander 2000 gives its user so much power in accessing systems, you have the option of requiring a password before ERD Commander 2000 will run. Using a password is especially important when you have ERD Commander 2000 installed on your hard disk, since otherwise anyone will be able to access files on your system. (See Figure 3-7) When an ERD Commander 2000 installation requires a password, the user is given five attempts to enter it correctly. After the 5th failed attempt the system will reboot. Figure 3-7 Winternals Software LP Page 11 ERD Commander 2000 3.9 File Installation The final phase of installation is copying the ERD Commander 2000 files to the installation point: floppy disk, CD-ROM image directory, or hard disk. 3.9.1 Floppy Disk Installation If you are creating a floppy disk installation you will be prompted for each floppy disk in turn. Four blank diskettes are required if you are creating an installation for Windows NT 4.0, and five blank diskettes are required if you are creating an installation for Windows 2000. Label the disks ERD Commander 2000 Disk #1, #2, etc. When the diskettes have been created you can boot a system from them by inserting diskette #1 into the floppy drive and resetting the system. (See Figure 3-8) Figure 3-8 Winternals Software LP Page 12 ERD Commander 2000 3.9.2 CD-ROM Installation You must have a CD-Writer and appropriate CD-ROM burning software in order to create a bootable CD-ROM. The software must support the creation of bootable CD-ROMs that use a Custom boot record. (One choice is Golden Hawk's CDRWIN). Creating a bootable CD-ROM will allow you to boot ERD Commander 2000 more quickly than when booting from floppy disks. It is also a convenient means of creating a disaster recovery CD-ROM on which you can place system images or other files that you might want to use to recover or restore a system. If you are creating a CD-ROM installation you will be prompted for a directory into which the CD-ROM image should be copied. (See Figure 3-9) Once completed, use your CD-Writer software to burn the CD-ROM image. When you create the CD-ROM, be certain to follow these directions carefully, or the CD-ROM will not be bootable: 1. Add the image directory to the CD-ROM. When the CD-ROM is burned the \i386 directory should be in the root directory of the CD-ROM (i.e., F:\i386). 2. Use the ISO 9660 file system (NOT Joliet). 3. Mark the CD-ROM as bootable. 4. Use the file BOOTSECT.BIN as the boot sector Image. 5. Set Media Emulation to 'custom'. 6. Set Load Sector Count to '4'. 7. Set Load Segment to 07C0 (hex). 8. Enable copying of Hidden and System files. 9. Disable version numbers. 10. Disable preservation of full path names. [If you are using Golden Hawk's CDRWIN and would like additional instructions, please refer to the Appendix on page 44 of this document.] Winternals Software LP Page 13 ERD Commander 2000 Figure 3-9 Winternals Software LP Page 14 ERD Commander 2000 3.9.3 Hard Disk Installation You can also choose to install ERD Commander 2000 directly on the hard disk of a system. When installed on the hard disk, you will have the option to run ERD Commander 2000 each time your system boots (an entry for it is added to your BOOT.INI file). If you are creating a hard disk installation then the ERD Commander 2000 files will be copied to the \ERDCBOOT directory of your boot partition (the partition containing your BOOT.INI file), and your BOOT.INI file will be modified to include ERD Commander 2000 as a boot option. (See Figure 3-10) Figure 3-10 Winternals Software LP Page 15 ERD Commander 2000 4 Starting ERD Commander 2000 4.1 Booting Up After the disks are loaded, a stripped­down version of Windows NT/2000 will start, displaying the familiar boot­time Blue Screen that presents the NT/2000 version number, system memory size, and number of processors present. ERD Commander 2000 then starts automatically and enters a command­line environment nearly identical to the one Windows NT/2000 implements in Command-Prompt. 4.2 Sample Screen Figure 4-1 is a presentation of what a typical display looks like after ERD Commander 2000 has started. ERD Commander 2000 presents information on the disk drives that are recognized and the drive letters it has assigned for them. Volume name, file system type, and drive size data should help you identify particular drives. Once started, you can run various commands to query and modify the system. Microsoft (R) Windows NT (TM) Version 4.Ø 1 System Processor [128 MB Memory] ERD Commander 2000 Copyright (C) 1998-2000 Winternals Software LP http://www.winternals.com Drive letter mappings: A: \Device\FloppyØ\ C: \Device\HarddiskØ\Partition1\ WINNT D: \Device\HarddiskØ\Partition2\ PROGRAMS E: \Device\HarddiskØ\Partition3\ DATA G: \Device\CdromØ\ C:\> NTFS FAT NTFS CDFS 1Ø15744 KB 2Ø56ØØ KB 87Ø64Ø KB Figure 4-1 Winternals Software LP Page 16 ERD Commander 2000 5 The Command-line Environment 5.1 Overview Once ERD Commander 2000 boots, a stripped-down version of Windows NT/2000 will start, displaying the familiar boot-time Blue Screen that presents the Windows NT/2000 version number, system memory size, and number of processors present. ERD Commander 2000 then starts automatically and enters a command-line environment nearly identical to the one Windows NT/2000 implements in Command Prompt. ERD Commander 2000 has a sophisticated command-line processor and it implements a large subset of Windows NT/2000's command-line command set, complete with all standard file-related commands. The environment mirrors the standard Windows NT/2000 command-line environment so that using ERD Commander 2000 is intuitive, if you're familiar with the commands and command-line editing capabilities present in NT/2000, then you already know how to use ERD Commander 2000. The command-processor's editing features include: Arrow key navigation (e.g. left-arrow to move back, right-arrow to move forward) Special key navigation (e.g. Home to go to the start of a line, End to go to the end) Insert mode Command history A sample of the commands available in ERD Commander 2000 includes: RMDIR MKDIR MOVE Winternals Software LP Page 17