ERD Commander is a handy tool for Windows recovery 7 after crashes and errors. In addition, it allows you to check disks and memory for possible damage, make changes to the registry, manage disk partitions, and reset the administrator password. If standard Windows does not boot, the program allows you to start using a portable operating system that does not require installation. There, the user can find administrative, network and system tools to restore the OS and fix errors.
ERD Commander is distributed in the form of an ISO image, so to start it you need to create a bootable USB flash drive with the program. After changing boot priorities in BIOS settings the system will start from disk. Next, you need to select the type and bitness of the system installed on the computer. ERD Commander versions 6.5 only supports 32 and 64 bit Windows systems 7 .
The program allows you to restore the system using rollback points previously created by the system. Points are created automatically, but on condition that this mode is enabled. Thanks to this, Windows creates rollback files for every major change to the system: updating the operating system or software, installing drivers. There is also a launch customization function.
Features of ERD Commander 6.5:
- To start, you need to burn an ISO image with the program to a bootable USB flash drive
- It has portable system(liveCD) to allow start-up on severe errors
- Extensive set of tools for OS troubleshooting and diagnostics,
- Available in Russian
- Supports Windows 7 system only
Hello again!
In the assumption that the information will be useful to someone ...
So: Introductory.
I have a frail computer (by today's standards) but, on the other hand, a lot of HDDs. Historically, the OS was built on three of them. 2 XP installed at different times and the last installed OS WIN7 on the third.
Somehow, in the settings of the last defragmentation program, there were active checkboxes for all disks. From where I assume that the problem has gone with the inability to boot from under the other 2.
The trouble is so-so, but I really wanted to finish off the recovery.
What happens or happened during defragmentation, I hope, is clear.
Bottom line: No system booted.
First, I took up the smallest HDD, 40G.
Maximum - reached the command line. I tried all the more or less common methods on the Internet. And, after choosing from the menu, received either through F8 or in another way, I had either a black screen or a hang on a certain dll or driver (I don't remember). And that's all ...
About ERD.
I found out about it and how not to try it.
Again, after all imaginable and inconceivable trials, I had the required HDD with some OS in the ERD menu. Some because: 1 what was determined was not exactly the OS that should have been (some kind of Win200 server instead of XP3) and 2. As I wrote above, the OK button is inactive.
BUT!
By default, the system does not care, it turns out, muddies the rollback points. Here ERD also helped.
We load from it.
We go to our HDD, on which the system should be.
Looking for: x: \ System Volume Information \ _restore ... \ RP ... \ snapshot
RP - probably from Restore Point. We are looking for the RP that best fits the date.
There are files there: _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM; _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY; _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE; _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM; _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT.
Copy them to: C: \ WINDOWS \ system32 \ config.
NATURALLY do not forget to copy the files of the same name from there, just in case, for example, to the TEMP folder.
Rename to: SAM; SECURITY; SOFTWARE; SYSTEM; DEFAULT.
By the way, there you can also find (and try to use) the same files with the * .bak extension. I haven't tried it. I didn't realize.
After that I rebooted from ERD and ... Oh! Miracle! ERD sees my OS !!!
Then I inserted the CD with the distribution kit (installation disc). I start the computer. And if earlier, when choosing from the menu: to update or restore, I was thrown out and the car did not obey, now the Update has worked. Well, after 30-40 minutes, a desktop appeared with everything that was on it.
A WARNING. After that, not all previously installed programs work or work correctly, fully. This can be used if there are no other options, or in the hope of saving something important, which, according to the law of meanness, was on the desktop or somewhere there, something else.
PySy. Next in line is the next HDD with XP3 and then Win7. This one, by the way, died when I tried to boot from a half-dead other system and on Win7 it worked out the scanning process and attempts to fix something wrong there (blue screen at startup).
EVERYTHING! I will not forget - I will unsubscribe if and how I restored it.
Boot mechanism and general structure of the boot disk.
& nbsp & nbsp When you turn on the power of the computer, a general hardware reset is performed and control is transferred to a special program, flashed in the read-only memory (ROM) BIOS, called the Basic Input / Output System.
The main purpose of the BIOS is to check the health of the computer hardware, reset and initialize the main controllers, and perform the initial boot of the operating system. The equipment check is performed by a self-test routine (POST - Power On Self Test). POST performs groups of tests that check the performance of the processor, memory, main chipset controllers and some peripheral devices required to perform the initial boot (disks, keyboard, video adapter, etc.). If during the POST process errors are found that prevent the boot from being performed, a stop is performed with a special sound signal to identify the faulty hardware. POST error codes are not standardized and are determined by the BIOS version. If the testing is successful, almost all BIOS versions generate a single short beep ("short squeak") and the boot procedure of the operating system begins.
To perform bootstrapping, in general, the BIOS subroutine must read the programmed in a certain way from the external media into RAM and transfer control to her.
To load from an external USB disk, the BIOS boot routine needs to be able to detect a boot device that contains a special entry in its first sector Master Boot Record or MBR... By default, the MBR is located in the first sector of the boot disk and occupies 512 bytes (the standard sector length). This is not a prerequisite - the MBR can occupy more than one sector, depending on the specific type of bootloader. Although the MBR is not strictly platform dependent on the OS being loaded, it is different for DOS. file systems Windows and Linux.
A mandatory sign of the presence of an MBR record in the first (sometimes called zero) sector of the disk is a special code (signature) in the last two bytes - 55AA. The presence of a signature is checked by the BIOS subroutine first, and if it is absent, the disk is considered non-bootable, even if all other bootability conditions are met. Many hard drive programs allow you to view and edit data for selected sectors. This is, for example, an MBR record viewed with the free version of Victoria for Widows
Strictly speaking, the presence of a signature is not so much a sign of the presence of MBR as a sign of the presence of any partitions on the disk. If you change, for example, using the disk editor, the sector signature, then both the BIOS and the operating system will consider such a disk "unformatted".
& nbsp & nbsp Before the signature (at offset 0x1BE relative to the beginning of the sector) there is a Partition Table, consisting of 4 elements, 16 bytes each, which determines the maximum number (no more than 4) partitions on the hard disk. Each element describes the type of partition (00h - a partition of undefined type, simply - free space, 01h - 12-bit FAT, 05h - extended partition, 07h - NTFS, etc.), activity sign (bootability) - code 80h, start address , end address, offset relative to MBR, and number of blocks on the partition. Simplified, the structure of the MBR can be represented as follows:
Program code and data. (446 bytes.)
- disk partition table (4 fields of 16 bytes - 64 bytes)
- signature 55AA (2 bytes)
The bootstrap program searches for the active (Active) section, reads data from the first sector of this section into RAM, and transfers control to the initial instruction of this bootloader code. The content of the boot sector of an active partition usually depends on the operating system being loaded. Its task is to load the OS kernel into memory and transfer control to it.
Thus, to boot from an external USB drive, you need:
To make the computer BIOS support this type of boot,
- there was an MBR recording on the media
- there was an active partition with a boot record (PBR - Partition Boot Record).
- the OS loader must take control and load the necessary operating system files.
& nbsp & nbsp From the above, it follows that simply copying files of any OS to a flash drive (or other media) will not lead to the possibility of booting this operating system from it, since when copying files, the MBR and the boot record of the active partition are not modified (PBR). Conversely, if there is an MBR and a PBR partition bootloader, it is possible to replace the files on the bootable system. For example, if you have a bootable USB flash drive with Windows XP, then you can completely delete all its files from the partition and replace them with others of the same operating system. The ability to boot from such a flash drive will remain. In general, the loading scheme will be as follows - reading and executing the MBR code, loading the PBR code of the active partition, searching and loading the Windows bootloader file ntldr, which must be located in the root directory of the drive from which the boot was performed.
Create a bootable USB c drive using its ISO image.
& nbsp & nbsp Today there are a considerable number of different software products, including those not intended directly for solving the problem of creating a bootable flash drive, and nevertheless, allowing, with skillful use, to solve it. The easiest and fastest way to create a bootable USB disk is using a free program Rufus, which is described in a separate article. The process of creating a bootable USB flash drive with ERD Commander is no different from the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows installations, the difference is only in the used iso-image files.
& nbsp & nbsp In this article, we will consider the most common case when you have a CD or its ISO image and you need to create your own bootable USB flash drive based on it.
& nbsp & nbsp An ISO file is a data image of a CD or DVD disc based on international standard ISO-9660. The image file contains an exact copy of the physical CD: - data, information about the file system, directory structure, file attributes and, importantly - boot information... While creating ISO image, copies every bit of the CD / DVD disc according to the original media. The ISO format is the most common format for CD images, so there are a huge number of programs that allow you to get its ISO image from an existing disc. There are also software products that allow you to perform image editing and create bootable media from it. One of the more popular bootable media creation programs is EZB Systems Inc. The program is paid, however, the unregistered version allows you to work with files up to 300 MB, and can emulate a virtual CD up to 600 MB.
& nbsp & nbsp For example, let's use UltraISO to create a bootable USB flash drive based on the ERD Commander 2008 bootable CD.
First, you need to create an ISO image, for which in the main menu of the program, select the tab Instruments and paragraph Create CD Image... Then we select the drive with the bootable CD, and also specify the name and path of the ISO image file:
After pressing the button To make creating an ISO image from the existing CD will begin. The progress of the process is displayed by the program:
After completing the creation of the image, the program will offer to open its contents.
In this case, since there is no need to work with the contents of the ISO image, you can answer Not and go to the next step - creating a bootable flash drive with ERD Commander 2008 based on the disk image.
and paragraph Write Disk Image(Burn the image to disk)
Disk Drive- select the USB drive to which you want to burn the ISO image
In field Image file the name and path of the ISO image file is displayed. This field cannot be changed in this context. Its value is set by the selected (open) ISO file. If you need to select another image file, then this is done through the main menu of the program - File - Open is the name of the image file.
Recording method - you need to choose USB HDD or USB HDD +.
At the bottom of the window, click the button Format and set the parameters for formatting the removable disk.
After formatting is complete, close its window and press the button Write down... The program displays a warning that all data on the disk will be destroyed and requires confirmation to continue working.
After clicking Yes the process of recording the image to the removable disk begins. The progress of the process is displayed as a protocol in the upper part of the main window.
After the write operation is completed, the button becomes active. Back to and when you press it, the image recording window is closed.
& nbsp & nbsp This technique makes it easy to create bootable USB system rescue discs from images ERD versions 6.0 and 6.5 of the kit Microsoft Diagnostic And Recovery Toolset(MS DART). However, an attempt to create a bootable USB flash drive from the image ERD Commander 2005/2008 or ERD version 5.0 ended in failure. The disk was created successfully, but an attempt to boot from it ended with a message on the display screen:
Start booting from USB device:
Remove disk or other media.
Press any key to restart
& nbsp & nbsp ERD 6.X images are based on Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) version 2.0 and later. WinPE is a stripped down version of Windows XP that can be booted without installing on a hard drive, but using a CD / DVD drive or external USB drive. Version 2.x and older uses a Windows Vista / Windows 7 style bootloader. Previous Versions- a bootloader in the style of Windows NT / 2000 / XP.
Let me remind you that when writing an ISO image to a flash drive, the UltraISO program displayed a log of its work, in which there was a record about the type of the boot sector of the partition. In the above example, this is the line - Boot Sector: WinNT... This means that the boot sector of the partition used to boot Windows NT / 2K / XP was used. The process of booting the system from the hard disk in this case is as follows:
- the boot sector (s) of the active partition is read and control is transferred to it.
- search and loading is performed with the transfer of control to the system loader file.
The WinNT / 2K / XP boot mechanism using the hard disk is the same - the bootloader file is searched for in the root partition of the disk ntldr, is loaded into memory, and control is transferred to it. Next, the bootloader code is already looking for and loading required files Widows.
In the case of Windows PE on CD, the CD boot sector code (file bootsect.bin) is used and instead of the boot loader file ntldr file used setupldr.bin from the I386 catalog. Moreover, the setupldr.bin file is completely functionally identical to the ntldr file. A simple solution suggests itself - delete the bootsect.bin file from the root of the flash drive and copy the setupldr.bin file from the I386 directory to its root under the name ntldr.
The program code of the boot sector of the active partition must find the ntldr boot loader file in the root of the flash drive and transfer control to it.
When I tried to boot in this way, the situation changed. The download started, the message was issued
Setup is inspecting your computer "s hardware configuration:
And after a few seconds
NTDETECT failed
That's right, setupldr.bin in the form of an ntldr bootloader in the root of the flash drive worked, but the file was not found NTDETECT, which is quite expected, since the WinNT-style boot mechanism assumes that in addition to the ntldr file, there must be a file in the root partition of the disk ntdetect.com
This file is also located in the directory I386 flash drives. A pattern is seen that when using setupldr.bin as ntldr, all files needed to boot and initialize the kernel must be located in the root directory of the disk, not in the directory I386... After copying them to the root partition of the removable disk, the boot ended with the message
File \ minint \ system32 \ biosinfo.inf could not be Loaded
File missing \ minint \ system32 \ biosinfo.inf... However, the catalog minint not on the flash drive, but there is I386, in which the required file is located. The conclusion suggests itself that instead of the system directory name I386 name is used minint.
Actually, you could figure out the structure of the records in the file txtsetup.sif and change the path to system files, but there is an easier and more universal way.
Let's try to rename the directory and try to boot from the flash drive again. Everything works great! Booting from an external USB drive ERD Commander 2005/2008 / ERD5.0 is performed without any problems, much faster and there is a great opportunity to remake the resulting bootable ERD flash drive to suit your preferences.
Create a bootable ERD flash drive without using an ISO image.
& nbsp & nbsp Understanding the download mechanism allows you to "manually" solve most problems without looking for and installing additional software. For example, if you need to replace the ERD Commander version on the received flash drive, you can do this without using any software. The MBR and the boot sector code of the active partition are already available on this flash drive. Therefore, it is enough to simply delete from it all files and directories of one version of ERDC and "slip" the necessary ones from the composition of the other.
Naturally, you cannot use formatting, namely delete old files and folders and copy new ones in their place.
& nbsp & nbsp To create bootable removable USB drives, you can do without using CD-ROM burning. The previous problem can be solved without using the UltraISO program. To get the MBR and the boot sector of the partition on a flash drive, you can use, for example, a simple and free program that allows you to format USB media with recording boot sectors. The program does not require installation and is very easy to use.
After formatting is complete, we will have an empty USB flash drive with an MBR record, an activity sign and a WinNT-style partition boot sector. To create a bootable ERD Commander disk, it remains to do the following:
Copy the contents of the ERD disk to a flash drive. If you have an ISO-image of the disc, then its contents can be extracted using, for example, WinRAR.
- copy files (biosinfo.inf, ntdetect.com, etc.) from the I386 folder to the root directory of the flash drive
- rename the setupldr.bin file in the root directory to ntldr
- rename the I386 directory to minint.
Creating a bootable USB flash drive for ERD Commander 6.0-7.0 by standard Windows tools 7
ERD Commander 6.0 and later uses new dispatcher downloads BOOTMGR... Just like the bootloader file ntldr, file bootmgr located in the root directory of the drive from which you are booting. The boot sector of the active partition has a program code for searching for it, reading it and launching it for execution. The boot configuration for the new dispatcher is stored in a special format, in the file BCD catalog \ BOOT and is the system storage of the Boot Configuration Data. The configuration used for ERD Commander 6.0 (DaRT 6.0) and later already has the necessary entries to create a ramdisk image in computer memory and deploy the bootable system image (BCD configuration entries for the device and boot application). Relatively high versatility of the new download manager bootmgr allows, with the correct configuration, to download and deploy Windows image PE (ERDC) no matter from which physical medium it is being executed. In other words, to boot ERDC 6.0 (DaRT 6.0) and later, it is enough that the boot sector code can transfer control to the boot manager. bootmgr and the flash drive would have an exact copy of the CD data:
File bootmgr in the root directory
Catalog BOOT with all its contents
Catalog sources where is the bootable image file boot.wim
There is also a directory on the disk EFI, which may be needed if the boot manager is used to load operating systems based on system partition EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface)
Thus, to boot ERDC 6.0 and later, you need to have an active partition with a bootloader on the flash drive. bootmgr... To write the code of the boot sectors that switch the boot to bootmgr you can use the service utility bootsect.exe which is in the catalog boot, or can be taken from the kit installation disk Windows Vista and older.
To format the flash drive and set the sign of the active partition, you can use the standard command line utility diskpart... Once launched, the utility displays a Command Prompt:
DISKPART>
To get a list of disks, you need to enter the command:
list disk
The list will display the disks present in the system. It is necessary to determine which of them is the flash drive. This is usually seen in the column the size(it should be borne in mind that the "Free" column does not display the free disk space, but the available space for creating a new partition, and you should not pay attention to it). Further operations on the selected disk will lead to the destruction of data, therefore, you need to be careful and not make a mistake when choosing.
select disk 3- select disk 3
After the command to select a disk, all operations will be performed in relation to it. By command list disk the selected disc is displayed with the symbol * in the first column.
To clear the contents of the disk, use the command
After cleaning, you need to create a new primary partition on the flash drive with the command:
create partition primary
Select the created section for subsequent commands:
select partition 1
Make it active:
Format it, for example, on the file system FAT32
format fs = fat32
After the message about the completion of formatting, assign a free letter to the section with the command:
And finish working with the program:
After that, you need to determine the drive letter using Explorer or, for example, "Disk Management" Control Panel (diskmgmt.msc). To create a boot sector in the style bootmgr you need to run the command:
bootsect / nt60 X: where X: is the letter assigned to the flash drive.
If successful, a message will be displayed containing the line:
Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.
After these operations, the flash drive is ready to download the download manager file bootmgr All that remains is to copy the contents of the ERD Commander CD and boot. Similarly, you can create a bootable USB flash drive for any software product on Windows based PE2 with boot manager bootmgr(flash drive based on the system installation disk, emergency recovery disk, etc.)
When using this technique, you need to consider the following points:
If the flash drive already has an active partition, then the utility diskpart usually not needed.
Executing a command bootsect does not affect the data on the disk and can be executed at any time. To overwrite the master boot record (MBR) code, you can use the - bootsect / mbr / nt60 X command:
To restore boot style ntldr key used / nt52
Creation of a multiboot flash drive with ERD versions 5.0, 6.0, 6.5. 7.0
& nbsp & nbsp When booting from any media, instead of the bootloader code of a specific system, in principle, any program code that can be found and initialized by the bootloader can be loaded. In turn, this code can transfer control to other boot loaders of other operating systems. In other words, in multiboot products, instead of loading a specific OS, it boots first. special program - download manager(or Boot Manager), with which the desired system is selected and control is transferred to its bootloader.
The loading process is schematically as follows:
The MBR is read and the address of the active partition is determined.
- the boot sector (s) of the active partition is read and control is transferred to it. Boot manager is provided
- the boot manager displays a list of possible boot options, searches for and loads the selected system.
& nbsp & nbsp One of the most versatile tools for creating multiboot media is GRUB- GRand Unified Bootloader - the most popular bootloader in Linux / Unix environment, which has become a kind of benchmark for a well-implemented, flexible, and efficient bootloader. In addition to the ability to pass parameters to a bootable system, GRUB can chain control to another bootloader, which allows it to boot Windows (via the ntldr bootloader) and practically any other system.
The GRUB project began development in the late 90s as part of the implementation of the Multiboot Specification, a specification that provides a universal way to boot kernels of any operating system. On the basis of GRUB, the GRUB4DOS package was developed - a universal boot loader controlled in command line mode or using a configuration file. The GRUB4DOS boot loader can be used as the main system boot loader on both Linux and Windows. When installed in MBR, the file grldr.mbr, included in the Grub4dos package, is written to the bootable area of the boot device (HDD, floppy, USB Flash drive). Main file at the root of the device grldr, similar to the bootloader ntldr loaded from MBR using grldr.mbr code.
When Grub4dos is loaded from the MBR, it scans all supported devices with all supported file systems for the presence of the grldr file, and if found, it loads it into RAM and then transfers control to it. The grldr loader program code searches for its configuration file menu.lst, and if no such file is found, then command mode is activated. The grldr and menu.lst files can be located not only in the root of the active partition along with the MBR, but also on any others.
If grldr is installed as the boot sector of a partition, then it must be searched for and loaded by the MBR code. In any case, the initial stage of the bootloader operation is to search for the menu.lst configuration file. If there are several menu.lst files (on different disks), the first menu.lst loaded will be the file on the boot device. If the file is found on one of the hard drives, files on removable media are ignored.
One of the features of the grldr boot loader is the ability to boot operating systems directly from an ISO image file. Therefore, making a bootable disc with multiple ERDC ISO files becomes a fairly straightforward task.
The procedure for creating a multiboot USB disk can be divided into the following steps:
Formatting the flash drive and installing the grldr.bin bootloader code in the MBR sector and installing the active partition bootloader code for GRUB.
- Copying the grldr file to the root of the flash drive.
- Copying iso-image files of bootable operating systems.
- Setting up the bootloader menu using commands written to the menu.lst file.
As an example, I chose the option of creating a USB flash drive with 3 different versions ERD Commander - 5.0, 6.0, 6.5, and accordingly, with 3 image files erd50.iso, erd60.iso, erd65.iso.
When working with GRUB, certain rules are used, ignoring which can lead to boot problems and even loss of user data. In all cases of working with the bootloader software, especially in the Windows environment, you must be careful and be aware of the result of the actions performed. If you are unsure of your knowledge and skills, do not perform such actions when drives with important data are connected, or at least make copies of boot sectors, file location tables or full copies HDD.
When working with the Grub4Dos bootloader, respect the case of characters - lowercase and capital letters for him they are different symbols. Device naming is also different from Linux and Windows. Device names used by GRUB:
Fd - floppy disk
cd - compact disk - CD-ROM drive
hd - hard disk - hard disk drive
Disks and partitions are numbered starting from zero. Device and partition entries are enclosed in parentheses. So, the entry (hd0) means first hard drive, recording (hd0,0) means the first partition on the first hard drive... The disks are numbered according to their BIOS numbers. Usually, when standard setting, Primary Master Disk is hd0, Primary Slave is hd1, etc. If the order of the boot devices is changed in the BIOS, then the disk naming is also changed. In particular, when you set the boot mode from a flash drive, it will be named hd0, and the first hard drive - hd1. This fact is often overlooked when creating multiboot disks, as a result of which the bootloader menu items are not working, due to the incorrect numbering of the boot devices.
The GRUB bootloader supports the command line and allows you to execute about fifty built-in commands, much like Unix / Linux console commands. To enter GRUB debug mode, press the key INSERT at the very beginning of the bootloader. In this mode, messages about the progress of the download will be displayed on the display screen. To enter the GRUB command line, press the key C at the very beginning of the bootloader. The screen will prompt you to enter commands.
The list of bootloader commands can be obtained by pressing the key TAB(list without any additional information) or by command
A hint for a specific command can be obtained using
help command name
help find- command prompt find
Examples of commands for checking the numbering of disks and partitions
find /menu.lst- display a list of sections containing the menu.lst file
find /boot.ini- give a list of partitions containing the boot.ini file, usually used to check the name of the partition with Windows (instead of boot.ini, you can use the search for the ntldr bootloader file itself).
If there is a menu.lst file, the commands for the bootloader are taken from it. Menu.lst lines starting with a character # , are not processed and are used as comments. It only takes a few commands to create a simple multiboot ERD disk.
Step-by-step method of creating a multiboot flash drive with ERD 5.0, ERD 6.0, ERD 6.5
I have collected all the programs that may be needed for work in a small zip archive,. No installation required.
1. Formatting and setting boot sector codes.
To format the flash drive, use the utility USB Disk Storage Format.(HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool) - hpusbfw.exe... Attempts to use standard formatting in Windows environment usually end up with no boot sector codes being installed, so it's best to use this utility. After starting in the main window of the program, you need select a flash drive for formatting .
Be careful, as a disk for formatting, you need to select exactly the flash drive that will be used as a multiboot one. The file system can be FAT32 or NTFS. Check the Quick Format checkbox. After completing the formatting, a window with the results will be displayed
You can use either the console (grubinst.exe) or the graphical version (grubinst_gui.exe) of the GRUB installer to install the boot sector codes (MBR and partition boot sector code for PB). The GUI version is simpler and less error prone.
Be careful when choosing a disc! The Grub4Dos installer uses GRUB drive naming conventions. Therefore, the selected disk can never be (hd0)(this is boot disk your system) and its size should be approximately equal to that issued by the formatting program of the flash drive. After selecting a disk, press Install After the installation is complete, you will receive a message about the results:
Push ENTER and close the installer.
If the installation of boot sectors is not performed and is accompanied by the message Should be a disk image, check the box Floppy image in the "Options" section and press the button again Install
2. Copy the required files and customize the menu.
Now it remains to copy the bootloader to the flash drive grldr, menu file and image files .iso. For ease of use, I have collected all this in an archive,.
After unzipping, you need to write all the files to a flash drive.
For those who already have ERD iso image files, you can copy them to a flash drive (observing the image names - erd50.iso, erd60.iso, erd65.iso) and add following files from the previous archive:
Grldr is a bootloader.
menu.lst - bootloader menu file
erdall is a graphical menu shell.
The multiboot flash drive is ready. You can boot.
Please note that unpacking images takes some time and after selecting a menu item, the screen may remain blank. Depending on the size of the ISO image file, the speed of the flash drive, and the system as a whole, this can take from a few seconds to several minutes.
The composition of the image files and the contents of the bootloader menu file can be changed as you wish.
Content of the menu.lst file:
default 0
gfxmenu / erdall
root (hd0,0)
Title ERD Commander 5.0 for Windows XP / Windows 2003
map --mem /erd50.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)
boot
Title ERD Commander 6.0 for Windows Vista / Windows 2008
map --mem /erd60.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)
boot
Title ERD Commander 6.5 for Windows 7 / Windows 2008 RC2
map --mem /erd65.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)
boot
Explanations of the GRUB commands used in the file:
default 0- select the first menu item by default (default 1 - the second, etc.)
gfxmenu / erdall- use the erdall file as the graphic style of the menu
root (hd0,0)- the first partition of the first disk will be used as the root partition, i.e. the first section of the flash drive from which the boot was performed.
title ERD Commander 5.0 for Windows XP / Windows 2003 is a boot menu item. The sequence of commands in each item set title the same, only the names of the items and the names of the image files differ.
map --mem /erd50.iso (0xff) Team map in this case it is used to emulate a CD in RAM (parameter --mem from image file erd50.iso to boot device 0xFF... Team map used to boot from images and to swap disks when, for example, you need to boot Windows from the GRUB menu of the bootable USB flash drive. In this case, if you do not replace the disk, the download will end with a message stating that the hal.dll file was not found, due to the fact that the Windows loader could not find the system directory, which should have been on (hd0). System location data contained in boot.ini file, bootloader ntldr Windows will look for (hd0), which will be your flash drive. Therefore, to ensure the normal boot of Windows installed on the hard disk, disks are usually mapped in such a way that the Windows disk becomes (hd0)
map -hook- perform mapping immediately. The map commands are not executed immediately, but are queued for execution. To undo changes to disk device emulation, use map -unhook
Parameter --mem use is optional, but desirable. If it is absent, the boot will be performed without mapping the image into RAM, and will look the same as booting from a CD. However, GRUB has an important limitation when creating a virtual device from a disk image without mapping it into memory - the image file must be contiguous (not fragmented). This condition is usually met when a CD / DVD is used as the storage medium. In the case of using a flash drive, when deleting and adding individual files, it is quite possible that the image file may be composed of several fragments and the download will end with an error message:
File for drive emulation must be in one contiguous disk area(The file for disk emulation must be contiguous).
In this case, you need to either defragment the file, for example, using the utility contig, or use image emulation in RAM, which does not require placing a file in a single fragment. It is only necessary to take into account that the amount of computer memory must be sufficient to accommodate the image file in it. Usually, small images are used with the -mem parameter, and direct mapping is used for files whose size does not allow them to be fully read into the computer's RAM. The pause, in the form of a blank screen, during loading large images and using mapping to memory, is caused by a relatively long time of reading data from a flash drive into RAM when emulating a boot device.
chainloader (0xff)- GRUB will use the mapped device 0xff as a boot device.
boot- execute the boot procedure prepared by the previous commands.
& nbsp & nbsp As an additional menu item, you can add the ability to boot Windows installed on your hard drive.
title Boot from first Hard Disk
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
map -hook
chainloader (hd0.0) +1
boot
The commands used in this paragraph are slightly different from those discussed above. As already noted, in order to boot Windows, the first hard disk (hd0) must be the boot device. Team map (hd1,0) (hd0,0) maps the first partition of the first disk (hd0,0) to the first partition of the second disk (hd1,0), i.e. instead of the flash drive from which the boot was performed, the hard disk will become the device (hd0). Team chainloader (hd0.0) +1 means that the first sector (+1) will be loaded from the first partition of the first disk.
& nbsp & nbsp In conclusion, I will add that this technique allows you to create your own edition of a resuscitation flash drive, for example, adding the ability to download Acronis products, Alkid CD assemblies, Ruslive CDs, etc.
& nbsp & nbsp For modern computers that do not have floppy disks, the ability to boot from a floppy disk can also be implemented by loading an image using GRUB. As an example, consider the ability to download images from popular programs for testing hard drives MHDD and Victoria. You can download the archive with prepared images from the link:
The archive contains 2 files - images mhdd.ima and vcr352.ima. They need to be copied to a flash drive and in menu.lst add lines:
title Victoria for DOS ver 3.52
map --mem /vcr352.ima (fd0)
map -hook
chainloader (fd0) +1
rootnoverify (fd0)
map --floppies = 1
boot
Title MHDD ver 4.60
map --mem /mhdd.ima (fd0)
map -hook
chainloader (fd0) +1
root (fd0)
map --floppies = 1
boot
In this case, floppy disk emulation will be used (device (fd0) mapped into memory from boot floppy image files vcr352.ima for Victoria and mhdd.ima for MHDD. Short explanation of commands:
chainloader (fd0) +1 specifies that the boot will be performed from the first sector of the first floppy disk.
root or rootnoverify ask for bootloader grldr an emulated drive as the root drive. rootnoverify used in cases where you need to tell the bootloader that the root disk does not need to be mounted. Typically, for standard file systems, use root .
map --floppies = 1- tells the grldr loader that only one emulated floppy drive will be used.
Sometimes, it is useful to include additional commands in the bootloader menu.
Go to command line:
title Command Line
commandline
To restart a computer:
title Reboot PC
reboot
Turn off computer:
title ShutDown PC
halt
In addition to this article:
A separate article on using virtualization technology to test bootable flash drives. Free download links and convenient programs to simplify the process of creating, debugging and testing the bootable media you create.
In many ways, the boot procedure is similar to the one discussed here, but instead of an external multiboot USB disk, a PXE server with a bootloader is used grldr and other files necessary to ensure loading over a local network. An example of a remote multiboot ERD Commander and Victoria.
Detailed instructions for creating multiboot flash drives using the free version of the Sardu program.
An example of using the free program Rufus to create a bootable USB flash drive with a Windows distribution.
Why do you need ERD Commander?
ERD Commander is an almost indispensable tool for the system administrator in the struggle for the survival of computers with operating systems of the Windows family installed on them.
Very often problems arise that cannot be solved without the help of a third-party operating system or the so-called LiveCD.
ERD Commander is a kind of LiveCD that allows you to reanimate the Windows operating system without reinstalling it.
ERD Commander was originally developed by the independent company Winternals, which was later acquired by Microsoft. The former Winternals site now hosts small, free utilities from Microsoft.
Caution on using ERD Commander
ERD Commander is available only for companies that are holders of corporate licenses, that is, using ERD Commander, even for non-commercial purposes, is a violation of the law and can be prosecuted.
There are currently 3 versions of ERD Commander:
- ERD Commander 5.0 (for Windows XP / 2003) - download ISO;
- ERD Commander 6.0 (for Windows Vista) - download ISO;
- ERD Commander 6.5 (for Windows 7) - Download ISO.
Each version of ERD Commander works only with a specific Windows version, that is, ERD Commander 6.5 will not be able to recognize Windows XP and therefore it will be useless for it.
Transferring ERD Commander to a bootable USB flash drive
Below we will talk about how to get the opportunity to download one of the versions of ERD Commander from a USB flash drive. This opportunity will be of interest to owners of netbooks and people who, for some reason, in this moment cannot use the CD to reanimate their computer.
Instructions for transferring ERD Commander to a USB flash drive:
After these steps, an ordinary flash drive turns into a medicine pill for the Windows operating system, which will allow it to be "repaired".
If you do not want to be tormented by such problems with Windows resuscitation, then you should take a closer look at alternative operating systems such as Linux or MacOS. The latter is more focused on simple, not highly trained users.
If you decide to buy a Macbook Air, it is better to do it through the online store. For example, you can buy a Macbook Air in an online store. mcdigital.ru... It's really cheaper there than in official Apple stores.
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Comments (1)
- Tarakan
19 August, 00:04PeToUSB
home page: http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb - Migel de Migel
19 August, 12:26Quite an interesting solution, haven't heard of no. I will try. Thanks to the author for the helpful article!
- Danil
22 August, 19:35A wonderful thing. [email protected] as always on top!
http://www.torrentino.ru/torrents/151833 - Yuri
August 25, 10:35I didn't succeed ... writes (Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration ...)
NTDETECT failed
- The thing
26 August, 15:07Actual article, thank you.
Only, for some reason, it does not work. The system boots as usual.
In BIOS -e, the first device was USB CD-ROM, the next HDD. -
[email protected]
28 August, 21:23Yuri: I didn't succeed ... writes (Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration ...) NTDETECT failed
And you definitely copied all the contents of I386 to the root
The Thing: Actual article, thank you. Only, for some reason, it does not work. The system boots as usual. In BIOS -e, the first device was USB CD-ROM, the next HDD.
Did you boot from a flash drive before?
- ) (o) (oJI
February 4, 17:14Nikhera does not come out ...
- Serviceman
February 15, 14:32It is well described and works here http://ab57.ru/flashboot.html
-
Max
February 15, 14:45Something ambiguous, hmm.
-
Oleg
March 31, 18:06 - Andrew
April 4, 14:09Oleg: I cannot start the utility with the parameters that are indicated on the screen, firstly, the start button does not become active, and secondly, it does not detect a USB flash drive, and it is not in the list. Why is that?
Is an software product, designed to restore the operating system Windows. Key function the program is reduced to disaster recovery of the system. An abbreviation ERD and translates as "emergency recovery disk" (Emergency Repair Disk). The program allows you to restore the system's performance in cases of its significant violation, in particular in cases of blocking the PC by viruses. This happens not only by removing malware, but also by restoring registry files from these restore points. Microsoft Windows distributes ERD Commander as part of Microsoft package Desktop Optimization Pack.
ERD Commander advantages and disadvantages
Extensive possibilities for recovering a damaged operating system;
+ ease of use;
+ general availability;
- long download on individual PCs;
- possible problems with compatibility on 32 and 64 bit systems;
- the need to boot from a CD or other removable media.
Key features
- restoration of a damaged system;
- displaying tasks that automatically start during the OS boot process;
- disk management (including formatting disks and deleting individual partitions)
- viewing the OS event log;
- editing the registry;
- installing and configuring network drivers and services;
- management of drivers and system services of the OS;
- sets of network and system tools and administration tools for the connected OS.