Article ID: 231777 - Last Review: February 26, 2007 - Revision: 3.4

How to Create an Emergency Repair Disk in Windows 2000

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Notice
This article applies to Windows 2000. Support for Windows 2000 ends on July 13, 2010. The Windows 2000 End-of-Support Solution Center (http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=http%3a%2f%2fsupport.microsoft.com%2fwin2000) is a starting point for planning your migration strategy from Windows 2000. For more information see the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy (http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/) .
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SUMMARY

This article describes how to create an Emergency Repair Disk (ERD) in Windows 2000 for use with the Windows 2000 repair process.

MORE INFORMATION

To create an ERD:
  1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Backup.
  2. On the Tools menu, click Create an Emergency Repair Disk.
You can use the ERD for the following repair functions:
  • Inspect and repair the startup environment.
  • Verify the Windows 2000 system files and replace missing or damaged files.
  • Inspect and repair the boot sector.
NOTE: When you attempt to repair Windows 2000, it asks if you have an ERD diskette, if you do not have the diskett, press L and the computer attempts to locate your Windows 2000 installation to perform repairs. This process looks for the Boot.ini file on your computer partition and reads the ARC paths to your operating system(s). The computer then attempts to load the following hive for each ARC path:
%systemroot%\System32\Config\Software

This attempt finds which installation versions matches the installation CDROM used to do the repair.

If the Boot.ini file cannot be read, or the software hive is corrupt, the repair is not able to proceed. At this time, you must have a ERD diskette containing a valid Setup.log file for that computer before repairs are possible.

The registry hives saved during setup are in the following folder:
%systemroot%\repair
The registry hives are used during a FAST repair only, otherwise you need to use Recovery Console to manually copy a more recent registry hive saved by NTbackup in the following folder:
%systemroot%\repair\regback
For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
216337  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216337/EN-US/ ) Rdisk.exe Is Not Included with Windows 2000
238359  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/238359/EN-US/ ) Differences Between Manual and Fast Repair in Windows 2000
240363  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240363/EN-US/ ) How to Back Up and Restore the System State
APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
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