Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Pagefile Errors

0 helpful
8 replies

by sysengineer

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I have a Windows 2000 machine that I have been trying to make a copy of the HDD to transfer to another computer. I have tried the DOS xcopy & copy commands, using Norton Ghost and Drive Copy. Everything seems to copy ok but when I try to start the computer I get a pagefile error.

I have tried re-formatting the drive, making sure its set to NTFS, I have created a pagefile on the drive before and after I have copied, and made sure the permissions are set to everyone, and after copying the drive contents I have made sure that a pagefile does exist in the drive.

Why am I getting this error. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

8 replies

by thechas

Ok,

You are copying an existing Windows 2000 installation onto another hard drive.
When you install the hard drive with the copy of W2K on it into a second PC, the second PC does not boot into Windows. Correct?

First, I assume this is the first step of a hardware upgrade, and you either will remove W2K from the first PC after the 2nd PC is running properly.
Or, you have a second W2K license.

Unlike Windows 95 and 98, Windows NT, 2000, and XP do not respond well to being moved to different hardware.
What I suspect is happening is that the IDE controller on the new PC is enough different that the driver that W2K is loading for the old PC does not allow proper access to the hard drive.

The "recommended" process for moving W2K to new hardware is:

Back up the old hard drive, less the hardware abstraction layer (HAL)

Install Windows 2000 clean on the new PC.

Restore from the backup.

Chas

by timthetoolman

The system you were copying from has either more than one page file set or has had its page file moved off the c:\ drive and the drive that it moved to no longer exists on the target machine after the copy.

You can either set the page file back to the c:\ drive on the original system or if you dont have access to that anymore, dodgy it up by creating a partition or three on the new drive before restoring.

Hopefully that would create a D:\, E:\ and F:\ one of which hopefully would be the drive it was looking for.

by timthetoolman

Hi TheChas,

Just dropped back to take a look at the new changes they'd said they'd made. I cant see too many yet...

Good to see you're still here, though :-)

Cheers,
Tim.

by sysengineer

Hey Chas.

Sorry. I should have noted that I do not have the win2k cd. I jumped the drive as a slave, then I used Norton Ghost to clone my c:\ drive onto the slave, and I still got the pagefile/low virtual memory error when I then jumped the drive as master then booted up the machine. I have tried just about everything on the internet in addition to what I know and I still can't get it to work...go figure.

by wcp

Answer 3 gave me an idea what you were trying to do.
The solution is to boot the computer with Windows 98 startup disk and run

Fdisk /mbr

by wcp

At one time I had an error message ?Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small? after the process you described in Answer 3 and the cure was FDISK.

References:

MS KB Article 223769 Cannot Change System Volume Drive Letter After Setup
MS KB Article 249321 Unable to Log on if the Boot Partition Drive Letter Has Changed

by wcp

It is the best practice to follow the following if you image the System HD to a second HD.

Make sure the second HD was NOT present when Windows 2K (or XP) had been loaded.

If this was the case, shut down the computer, disconnect the second HD, and reboot.
Shut down the computer and reconnect the second HD.
Now use any image software (e.g. Norton Ghost) to image the System HD to the second. Shut down the computer when it is done.
Make the second HD as Master, and boot the computer.

This discussion is closed to new replies.