RDISK /S and RDISK /S- Options in Windows NT

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 3.5 and 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 3.5 and 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0

The RDISK utility included with Windows NT version 3.5 or later has two command line options:

  RDISK /S

   -and-

  RDISK /S-

When you use the RDISK /S- option, the program also skips the Create Repair Disk? dialog box, saves configuration, and then the program quits.

WARNING PLEASE READ:

Both of these options also overwrite the saved SAM._ and SECURITY._ registry hives created during initial Windows NT Installation. The default administrator account and password used during Setup is all that is contained in these small files.

If you choose either of the above optional switches – Rdisk copies the entire current SAM and SECURITY database files containing ALL users and groups into the repair directory. On a domain controller containing many hundreds or even thousands of users these files can become very large which will Inhibit the ability to copy them to the emergency repair diskette (ERD).

Microsoft does not recommend using either of these switches on Windows NT Machines that have a large number of users and groups defined in user manager.

As a precaution – you should make a backup copy of the %systemroot%\repair directory to ensure you will still be able to make an emergency repair diskette after running RDISK while using one of the above switches.