Limited Virtual Memory dialog prevents Win2000 from starting

[Muse]

I have two Windows 2000 SP3 boxes on a LAN and one of them won't boot anymore. That box multiboots to Win2000, Win98SE and WinNT 4.0 SP6a. It has a paging file that's used by all three OSs on the 1 GB C:\ partition, and it's named pagefile.sys, and is 870 MB. Windows 2000 has virtual memory set at 850 MB minimum and maximum and it has always worked. Suddenly yesterday when I booted to Windows 2000 I got a dialog saying my virtual memory was nonexistent or too small. It said I should change this and there was an OK button. When I pressed the OK button, the familiar Win2000 Saving your settings... screen came up as though Windows was shutting down (Please wait... Windows 2000 Professional... Saving your settings...) and the same virtual memory dialog came up again. The only way out of this endless loop was a reset. Once reset Win2000 started up OK. Same thing today, and after getting into Windows I went into virtual memory, hit the Change button and then OK and rebooted and now I can't get anything but the loop. That is to say, I can't get into Windows 2000 at all. I tried going in in Safe Mode and I get the same thing. What can I do?

Here's what the dialog says exactly:

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Limited Virtual Memory
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Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small.

1. Right click My Computer, click properties, and then click the Advanced tab.
2. Click on the Performance Options button, and then click on the Change button. Under Drive [Volume Label], select the drive you want.
3. To create a new paging file, click the Initial Size (MB) box, and then type a paging file size.
-Or-
To increase the paging file size, click the Max Size [MB] box, and then type a larger paging file size.
When you have finished, click Set, and then click OK.

OK

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[Muse]

I just reset the machine again and realized that my bootloader screen has stopped appearing. It just goes straight to Windows 2000 load and the virtual memory problem dialog comes up with its OK button. Hitting the OK button makes the OS shut down and restart with the same dialog.

 

[Muse]

I just rebooted and realized that the first HD wasn't being detected. I have a longstanding recurring problem in this machine in that sometimes drives are not detected when attached to the Promise TX2 Ultra100 IDE controller card. I instead connected the HD to the IDE Primary Master channel and it booted without a problem.

 

[hito]

^bump, for I just started to get the exact same error

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: hito
^bump, for I just started to get the exact same error

As I said, connecting my boot drive to my motherboard's IDE controller instead of my Promise controller card stopped this from happening. What are the details of your system. Maybe I can suggest something.

 

[hito]

well, i was trying a few things, and i'm able to get in now. i tried the fdisk /mbr command and it worked like a charm

Now i have to get the files that crashed on my other drive over to this drive. Windows wont access the disabled drive whatsoever. However, in dos i'm able to see the files. But it's been so long since I used dos. I don't know of a command which could copy every file, sub file, hidden and not over to the new drive directory. I'll be making a new thread for this, just so it's easier to see

thanks for replying though, and i'm sure happy to hear that you resolved your problem too.

 

[Muse]

Xcopy in DOS is a very powerful copy command and with the proper switches I'm sure you can get your subdirectories and hidden files, etc. It think it defaults to getting the subdirectories but best to check the command out before using it. Good luck!

Edit:

http://www.computerhope.com/xcopyhlp.htm#03 is a site that gives the syntax, etc. For instance it says:

xcopy h:\*.* /a /e /k

The above command would copy everything located on the H drive to the drive you are currently on.

Now that looks like exactly what you want, if you substitute your drive letter, but I'd check out the site first. Good luck!

 

[NogginBoink]

Q249321 describes the problem that almost certainly happened.