The ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard is used to create a bootable International Organization for Standardization (ISO) image. An ISO image is a file that represents the raw contents of a CD, which can be written to a recordable CD. If your system includes a CD-R or CD-RW drive, the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard will offer to burn the ISO image to a blank CD. If your system does not contain a drive that is supported by the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard, you can burn the ISO image onto a CD using most programs that can burn a CD.
 Caution |
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| You should not use ERD Commander on a system that is running Windows Vista. If you start ERD Commander on a system that is running Windows Vista, the restore points will be deleted. |
 Important |
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| You cannot use the CD burning program that is included with Windows XP. |
You will need the following items to successfully create a bootable CD from the ISO image that the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard creates:
- A CD-R or CD-RW drive.
- A recordable CD (supported by your recordable drive).
- CD burning software that supports your recordable drive and
supports burning an ISO image directly to CD.
NoteYou should test the CD that you create on all systems that you intend to support because some systems are not capable of starting from all types of recordable CDs.
When you run the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard, you should be prepared to provide the following information:
- Debugging Tools for Windows. You will be asked to
provide the location of the Debugging Tools for Windows. For more
information, see How to Add the Debugging
Tools for Windows.
- Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Drivers. You will
be asked if you want to add OEM drivers for storage and network
devices to the ISO image. For more information, see Original Equipment
Manufacturer Drivers.
- Additional Files. You can add files to the ISO image
that you might need to help diagnose problems. For more
information, see How to Add Files to the
CD.
- ISO Image Location. You will be asked to specify where
the ISO image should be located. For more information, see How to Select an Image
Location.
- CD Drive. You will be asked to specify the CD drive that
should be used to burn the CD. For more information, see How to Burn the
CD.
| Note |
|---|
| The ISO image can range in size from 130 MB to 230 MB depending on the tools that you select when you run the Boot Media Wizard. |
To start the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard
- Click Start, point to Microsoft Diagnostics and
Recovery Toolset, and then click ERD Commander Boot Media
Wizard.
You can also create a bootable CD that can only be used for a certain number of days after it is generated. You must run the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard from a Command Prompt window to create the bootable CD that has a time limit. The following syntax is used to create a time-limited CD:
ERDC /e NumberOfDays
NumberOfDays is a positive integer that represents the number of days that the bootable CD will be usable.
To create a bootable CD that has a time limit
- Open a Command Prompt window.
- Change the directory to the location of the Erdc.exe
program.
- Run the ERD Commander Boot Media Wizard with the
/e parameter and specify the number of days that the
bootable CD can be used.