OK here's a problem for all you NT gurus - $100 to the first correct solution!

[downhiller80]

I'm that depsaret to get my PC back that I will paypal $100 to the person that provides most help here!

I am running Windows 2000 off of a single striped NTFS partition running on two Seagate Barracudas.

Yesterday I wanted to do a backup. Normally I just copy "My Documents" across to a "spare" IBM 34GXP. This time I decided to go for a full on clone.

Norton Ghost told me that my destination drive was not big enough to fit all of my existing partition on it. So I moved all my data onto one hard disk, just leaving all of my windows directory and program files to clone to another 34GXP I've got. So I moved those files, then switched off the computer and swapped this hard disk for the one I was going to clone the rest to.

Then I get this on boot-up. "Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small". it tells me how to correct this problem and I click on "Ok". Then it takes me back to the password screen, and this just repeats.

None of the safe modes work (pressing F8 and all that).

http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=124385
Looking at this post it seems that my GUIDs have become messed up but the solution provided requires my PC to be on a network.

1) I have a second (win98) PC that I'm writing this on now. Can I network them even if mine doesn't boot - i.e. I can't set up drivers etc.

2) If I do have to reformat will I be able to view my data which I moved to that other hard drive, foolishly not realising that win2k had formatted it as NTFS, not FAT32!


Thanks for your help - I'm going to go and slit my throat now . . .

Seb

 

[rahvin]

<<Norton Ghost told me that my destination drive was not big enough to fit all of my existing partition on it. So I moved all my data onto one hard disk, just leaving all of my windows directory and program files to clone to another 34GXP I've got. So I moved those files, then switched off the computer and swapped this hard disk for the one I was going to clone the rest to.>>

This needs a better description, go slow and be very detailed. I don't really understand what you are saying happened, I could interpret that a couple ways.

<<Then I get this on boot-up. &quot;Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small&quot;. it tells me how to correct this problem and I click on &quot;Ok&quot;. Then it takes me back to the password screen, and this just repeats.>>

What did it tell you to do? What did you do? Details, details, details...

<<2) If I do have to reformat will I be able to view my data which I moved to that other hard drive, foolishly not realising that win2k had formatted it as NTFS, not FAT32!>>

How do you know it changed it? Again I feel like a big piece of the puzzle is missing...

Just trying to help you get the right answer...

 

[Wizkid]

Well, considering that you have already slit your throat, this may not help, but here it goes anyways

Where was the swap file? On the hard that you took out, I am assuming. Well, put that drive back in to start with and put the partitions on there in the same way that they were before you got that error...

If you already deleted the swap file (wherever it was) then just create a new one in the same spot, you can try just a blank file of size zero and see if that will work... otherwise do a &quot;dummy&quot; install of 2000 and force it to create a swap file in the same spot that your &quot;broken&quot; install wants it. Then you can delete the &quot;dummy&quot; install. It's probably easiest to do the &quot;dummy&quot; install on a different drive / partition than the drive / parition that your &quot;broken&quot; install is on.

If this doesn't work. Then do a dummy install of 2000 anyways so that you can get access to your data (NTFS) or you could download a NTFS file reader for Windows 9x and read the data that way.

 

[Z_Amon]

There is a Microsoft Knowledgebase article dealing with this problem, however, the fix is probably not wholly relevant since you cannot currently log in.

The article is here:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q259/1/51.ASP?LN=EN-US&amp;SD=gn&amp;FR=0


&quot;The cause: The default permission is Everyone with Full Control. This may have been removed to provide additional security, and individual accounts such as Administrator may have been added. The Everyone group that was removed also includes the System account; removing the Everyone group without adding the System account as an individual account renders the paging file unusable.

Or, a paging file that is not adequately sized causes problems and generates an error message. &quot;

I'm going to guess that it's going to be a pain to get into the machine, so your best bet is to do a rescue installation of the OS. Wizkid's suggestion of a dummy install is essentially correct- there is a rescue capability built into Windows 2000 which will show up when you insert the disk to reinstall. However, please do bear in mind that you will likely have to reinstall drivers for various devices along the way, so have those ready if you can.

You might be able to network your machines, however it depends on how the shares are set up and what users exist for the machine. You *may* be able to log in via the network and then re-create your pagefile.sys, but I'm going to guess it won't work.

Final analysis: use the rescue install capability and you'll get your data back, I've done it a number of times myself while initially learning Win2k. And I learned my lesson and made a data drive which is a separate partition which I leave alone.

Z.

 

[pylorns]

You can always put the hard drive in your 98 machine, boot up with a 98 bootdisk - but you need to get a program that allows you to view the nt partitian, i forget which one i've used but it will allow you to read and copy your files from the NTFS to your fat32, hopefully.

 

[Eric_D]

Boot with the set-up disks, then use the Emergency Repair Disk.

 

[campd]

You could try this, and it may work, but I'm not even sure how you screwed it up. 3 hard drives. One of any size (preferably small, but more than a gig.) Install Win2k on NTFS. Second drive 34gig format fat 32 and leave blank. Screwed up disk is disk 3 NTFS. Boot to small drive (win 2k installed). Ghost &quot;drive 2&quot; from &quot;drive 3&quot;. Delete Nt boot files (see later). Remove extra disks and Place fat 32 drive as master. Insert Boot diskettes and repair deleted files including the paging file. If it works (and it should because permission will be revoked by the Fat 32 drive and the other win 2k disk). Repair should re-create the boot sector. Or don't delete the boot files and just create a second paging file (of the right size) on the Fat 32 disk. If it works just upgrade back to NTFS

In the future, Leave a smaller drive (1 gig +) on the system as your system (boot files) partition and back that up to Zip drive or something using the backup utility. Then leave the other 2 drives in the system (one for files and one for backup) and you only have to ghost the boot partition (system files) without backing up the system partition.

Email me with results.

 

[downhiller80]

OK well for starters I've sorted the prob myself now because Anand seems to have been down all day so I couldn't get your feedback.

What I did:

Started installing 2000 to one of my other hard disks and was suprised when it gave me the option to repair my current installation. OK I said, a little dubious. It then deleted LOADS of stuff and reinstalled loads of files. Now boots and everything seems to be working fine!

The only thing is now it is working as drive D and I want it as C. How can I do this without messing it all up again?

Also I now want to clone this to my other hard disk. Since I have no cloning software I tried this:

Installed win 2000 onto 2nd hard disk. Booted onto this disk. Then just copied everything across from disk 1 to disk 3. As far as I know EVERY file copied (apart from &quot;System Volume Information&quot; which was access denied.

If I now try to boot onto this perfectly cloned hard disk it gets to the first graphical screen on bootup and then goes to BSOD with &quot;inaccessable boot device&quot; which it obviously isn't since it's already loaded quite a bit of stuff! What's going on?

Seb

 

[stash]

You cant just copy all the files you see in explorer to a different drive and call it a &quot;perfect clone&quot; because it isnt. You're leaving out important partition and boot information that the OS needs. The only way you can make a perfect clone is with Ghost or something similar.

The file you couldnt move contains this important partition information. The reason you couldnt move it is because its in use by the OS. This is why you need a DOS based cloning solution.

Also, I had a question...your RAID stripe. Is it hardware RAID, or software RAID implemented with dynamic disks in Win2k. Dynamic disks can not be access by ANYTHING other than win2k. This would've created the initial problems that you had with cloning your drive.

If not, the reason why it didnt work the first time, is that you probably moved all the files in the root of your C: drive. You left the program files and and WINNT directory, but there are important files such as the paging file that are on the root of the drive. If you move the paging file to another drive just through explorer, then copy it back, I suspect it doesnt like that too much. This is why you would get a paging file error.

I would suggest a reinstall. Back up what you can and blow it away. I would also suggest you look into a more reliable back up solution if you choose to clone the entire drive again. My suggestion, especially if you have a hardware RAID card, would be to buy third hard drive and set up RAID 5. This way, if you lose a drive, you can still function with two until you can get a replacement and rebuild from parity. Or buy two addition hard drives and set up some kind of RAID 0+1 thing with the entire stripe across two drives being mirrored on the second set of two drives.

 

[tcrosson]

In reference to changing drive letters, that can be done through START - SETTINGS - CONTROL PANEL - ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS - COMPUTER MANAGEMENT. From there there is a box on the left side called disk management. You'll have to play around with it. You just right click on the drive on the bottom to change it. You'll probably have to change your D: drive to Z:, then your C: to D: and the temporary Z: back to C:. In theory that should work, although I have never tried changing the drive letter of the first drive before.

 

[Zxcvbnm]

Sebfrost: You are getting things messy here. My advice would be, do a fresh install on one of your other hard drives. At the same time, don't be tempted in trying to repair, well better yet, unplug all other hard drives. After you are done installing, plug them back in, look for the important information you want to keep. Move them over to the newly installed win 2k drive. Now unplug the drive with win 2k and the important information. Since important information has been saved, just go ahead and format the whole thing for a fresh installation. After you are done with the installation, plug the other drive with the important information back in, and now you can move them where ever you want. When done, you can go ahead and format the one you used as a dummy win 2k. There you go, all good again. Good luck

 

[downhiller80]

Yeah I've had enough of this crap. At least I keep all my downloads so re-patching all my games and that shouldn't be too much bother. I'll see what save files I can keep as well!

It's actually kinda nice doing a fresh install.

Also I've just bought myself a Duron 650 @ 900 and an A7V (WITH dip switches) so I want to get it working to play with that lot!

Seb