:: ERD Commander 2003 ::

ERD Commander (ERDC) is a commercial product that can be added to the DVD in many different ways, depending on the way the program is configured. Perhaps the easiest option is to integrate it into BartPE using a plugin found (insert URL: home.wanadoo.nl/arjan.van.beijnum/pebuilder.htm). If you don't use BartPE, you could just follow the steps below to add it to your disk the old fashion way.

ERD Commander 2003 is a tad different than XP. Basically, it has no setup folder. It's boot folder IS it's setup folder, because ERD runs from the DVD and doesn't actually install anything to a fixed disk.

Copying the ERD Commander 2003 Contents

Inside of your AIO-DVD folder create a folder called ERD1.

eg. - D:\AIO-DVD\ERD1\

Copy the entire contents of the ERD Commander 2003 i386 folder into the ERD1 folder. Your folder contents should look something like this:

Contents of D:\AIO-DVD\ERD1\

FONTS
HELP
INF
MSAGENT
SYSTEM32
UTILS
WINSXS
 biosinfo.inf
 ntdetect.com
 setupldr.bin
 spcmdcon.sys
 txtsetup.sif

IF your directory doesn't at least look something like this you need to find the folder that contains the system32 and winsxs folders. The entire contents of that folder should be copied straight to the ERD1 directory.

Editing "setupldr.bin"

Let's start modifying some files. First in your ERD1 directory open up the file setupldr.bin in Hex Workshop. Under Edit -> Replace (Ctrl+H) search for Type: "Text String." We want to find i386 and replace it with ERD1. The screenshot below is just for reference.

Click OK and then choose Replace All. It should say "4 Occurrences Replaced." If it does not find 4 occurrences, there may be a problem somewhere. When done, save the file and choose not to back it up.

Editing "txtsetup.sif"

In your ERD1 folder find the file txtsetup.sif and open it in NotePad. Choose Edit -> Find (Ctrl+F) and search for SetupSourcePath. You will need to change the default "\" to reflect the directory you copied your XP Home cd to. In this case it is "\".

SetupSourcePath = "\"

Note: This image is from XP Pro SP1 section. Do NOT change it to show what the picture shows.

Creating the Boot Sector

Now we will need to create the boot sector file that will actually load the text-mode setup for our operating system. Download the ERD1.zip file. Extract the file and then open ERD1.dat in Hex Workshop. Scroll down until you see the following text in the right hand side. The red text is what we will be replacing. Replace I386 with ERD1.

Save the file, choose not to back it up and then place it in the AIO-DVD folder.

NOTE: If the boot sectors I have provided for download to not work for you I have provided a section on how to create your own. Please check the "Boot Sectors" section under "Get Help".

Finishing Up

There's one last thing to do now. We need to copy our cd identification files to the root of our project. The following files need to be copied from your ERD Commander 2003 cd to your AIO-DVD folder:

• winbom.ini
• win51
• win51ip
• win51ip.sp1

Extra Boot Option

Thanks to gosh from MSFN for this tip. If you would like to be able to switch cds while using ERD, you have to set up a special boot option that will load ERD Commander 2003 into ram.

First of all, you'll need to make copies of 2 files, txtsetup.sif and setupldr.bin. Rename the copies, changing the extensions to .ram and leave the copies in your ERD1 folder. Then, edit the "OsLoadOptions" line in txtsetup.ram to read:

Now, create a copy of the ERD1.DAT file, place it in the AIO-DVD folder and rename it to ERD2.DAT. Open it in Hex Workshop and this time replace the strings SETUPLDR.BIN and TXTSETUP.SIF to reflect our new files, SETUPLDR.RAM and TXTSETUP.RAM. Since we have Hex Workshop open, load up SETUPLDR.RAM. Replace all instances of TXTSETUP.SIF with TXTSETUP.RAM. We also need to setup our boot menu to be able to load ERD. Only do this once you have read through "Creating a Boot Menu" and you are somewhat comfortable with CD Shell.

In your "menu:" section you should add something along these lines: Of course edit the code to display whatever you want.

Now in the "MainKey:" section add something along the lines of: