Pagefile problem when booting Win2K on new disk

[Gilles]

Hello folks,

my harddrive started showing critical defects so I
have to move all my system and datas to another disk. Since
I didn't want to reinstall Win2K, I copied all files
from the damaged drive, including pagefile.sys to
a new, sain and activated disk.

When booting from the new disk, everything runs fine
to the login window. Then, just after login, Win2K
shows a dialog window that complains the pagefile
is too small or no longer exists. This windows
also explains how I can fix this problem by
right-clicking on the computer icon, etc.

But just after clicking OK, the system logs me off and
I return to login window, unable to fix the problem.

I tried several tricks, including using the two (damaged
and sain) "identical" drives at the same time, or creating
two identical pagefile.sys files. It's always the same :
Win2K accepts to boot on the damaged drive, but not on
the new one.

Could someone give me some help to solve this problem ?

thanx

Gilles


But just after

 

[SaturnX]

Alrite, have the drive letters changed? Windows stores the location of the Pagefile in the registry, that's why you're getting the "not found" error. If they have changed, tell me what drive letter, and I can give you a registry file which you merge into the registry from DOS, and you should back on track.

--Mark

 

[danielshoes]

I had almost the same problem! I've tried a lot of things, without success. So, I gave up... Reinstalled alllllll again.
I still want to know an answer for this problem.

 

[Gilles]

The drive letter is the same (C ; no change.

I tried booting the new disk with or with the old one, with
C: for the new disk, and D: for the old one. No success.

It seems for me that Win2K not only stores the pagefile
path and name, but also some low level informations (allocation
blocks of the pagefile ?). That could explain why despite a
"good" name and path, Win2K find the pagefile is not OK.

Could using a ghost image of the disk be useful ?

The trick, if exists, is to boot Win2K WITHOUT any pagefile
at all. But I'm not sure it's possible...

Gilles

 

[Gilles]

The drive letter is the same (C ; no change.

I tried booting the new disk with or with the old one, with
C: for the new disk, and D: for the old one. No success.

It seems for me that Win2K not only stores the pagefile
path and name, but also some low level informations (allocation
blocks of the pagefile ?). That could explain why despite a
"good" name and path, Win2K find the pagefile is not OK.

Could using a ghost image of the disk be useful ?

The trick, if exists, is to boot Win2K WITHOUT any pagefile
at all. But I'm not sure it's possible...

Gilles

 

[SaturnX]

Hrmm... just an idea, have you tried rebuilding the Master Boot Record? Is Win2k your only OS? If so, then boot up into dos with a boot disk with fdisk on it, then type the following, fdisk /mbr that will rebuild the boot record on the new disk.

--Mark

 

[JesseKnows]

Did you use ghost or just a file copy?

In any case, the problem may not be the page file, but other issues with having changed the physical volume on which file system C resides.

If your old boot disk is still alive enough, you could try the following on the old one and copy the registry over again. If the old disk isn't reliable enough for that, you could do the same if you have another Win2K/WINNT computer networked with the subject PC.

Edit the registry, and at
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
there is a value Userinit which contains a pull path to the userinit.exe program. Remove the path part, leaving only the userinit.exe in the value (mine has a comma at the end, leave it if it is there).

The problem is discussed in Microsoft Knowledge base article Q249321

 

[Need4Speed]

Microsoft Kowledge Base can do wonders if u look:

Chek my links at bottom of page in this thread

 

[danielshoes]

Congratulations, need4speed!!!
This is the EXACT answer found in the RIGHT place!
But now it is toooooo late for me. Living and learning...

 

[Gilles]

Sure folks, and that's why some of us are "senior members"

Anyway, it was too late for me, as I have found another trick to solve
my issue : I put my pagefile on another disk (D) then removed
the pagefile on C and voila !

Now, I have another problem (Grrr). My very first disk had in fact
two OS (I didn't talk about this) : Windows 2000 AND Windows 98SE.

Before the change, I was able to boot the two OS. But now, at the
first boot menu, when I choose Windows (in place of Windows 2000),
I've got a black screen with a cursor blinking, in place of the
standard 98 boot menu

I suspect this might be an MBR issue, but before doing any damage
on my system, I would like an opinion... Need4Speed ?

Gilles

 

[Need4Speed]

Thank You..thank you {need4speed bows respectfully}

 

[Gilles]

Should I try to fix the MBR by using fdisk ? Can this
solve the Win98 boot issue ?

Gilles

 

[igiveup]

Might be a little late to talk about this now but if your hard drive is showing "critical errors" do you really want to copy that data to a new drive? Isn't it a little late for all this?

 

[Need4Speed]

Gilles...can u run that by me again? I'm not sure what u mean by the standard win98se boot menu.

For a dual boot setup you should have the menu where it asks you
micorsoft windows 2000 pro
microsoft windows

do you hae this menu? or does your box now boot into 98 without asking that?

It sounds to me like that you should do a fdisk /mbr...this will restore the mbr for win98. however, it will destroy the boot info for win2k. so in order to fix that, you need to pop in the win2k cd...boot from it and do a repair on your win2k. this will add win2k back to the menu. lmk how you make out

 

[Gilles]

You're right, igiveup. If the data on my install disk may be
corrupted, it's really not worth trying to save this install
and it's time to have a new install !

Anyway, IBM Diskperf tool gave me good reasons to think that
my install partition is OK... For now. All the corrupted blocks
found on my primary disk, which has 3 partitions, are located
at the end of the last partition. I'm confident about the data
stored on the system (first) partition.

But this disk is dying slowly, with more and more bad block
appearing. That's why I had to "copy" my system partition
to another disk. The way I did is probably not the right
one, but I used to do this with Win98 and it worked.

The pagefile.sys issue is solved. Now, my problem is that
I can't boot my Windows98 system. I copied all the files
from the system partition on the dying disk to the new disk,
including system hidden files like msdos.sys, io.sys, boot.ini,
etc.

I also tried FDISK /MBR. No result.

Yes, need4speed. I have the windows 2000 dual boot menu:

microsoft windows 2000 pro
microsoft windows

At startup, the system presents this classical dual boot
menu of Win2K when you have installed Win2K on a Win98
install with upgrading, ie you can boot both system.

When I choose boot windows, I have a black screen with
a cursor blinking on the top left. Before, I had
the classical boot menu of Windows98, showing the various
options for booting 98 in safe mode, dos prompt only,
etc.

When I choose boot win2K pro, everything works fine.

I spent a lot of time on MS knowledge database, finding
some really worth informations regarding boot, MBR, pagefile,
etc. But none of the informations I found helped me to solve
this problem.

Shoud I try to reinstall Win98 on the system disk ?
Should I only try to "sys c:" from a dos diskette ?
Should I try the various tricks regarding the registry
I found on MS knowledge base ?

Gilles.

 

[KGB]

Do what N4S suggests: Boot to your Win2K CD and do a "repair install". This will fix the NTLDR problem with your MBR.

 

[Gilles]

Well gentlemen, IT WORKS !!!

Yes, everything's running fine now, so it's time to
thank all people who helped me in this channel, and
bring a conclusion to this issue.

Yes, you can actually "migrate" manualy your Win98/Win2K
dual booting system from one disk to another by just
copying (with explorer) all the files on the first
disk to the second disk, if you plan to assign the
new disk the same letter as the previous one.

The first issue you'll enconter is the pagefile.sys
problem. I solved it by having only one pagefile.sys
on another disk (*not* the disk where your system is
located on). Another solution, found in MSKB, is simply
to remove all pagefile.sys files, by telling the system
you don't want any pagefile. The system then creates
a temporary pagefile elsewhere, whatever was your pagefile.
I didn't test this, but MSKB gives this trick as a solution
for solving pagefile.sys size/location problems.

The secong problem you'll encouter is the win98 boot
problem. You'll find your dual boot menu (provided by
boot.ini) but Windows 98 won't boot. FDISK /MBR is
uneffective here. What you have to do is indeed
to boot on a dos floppy and make a SYS C:
After that, Win2K seems to be gone. No problem :
you have to boot from the repairing floppies
disks of Win2K, select Repair, and repair the MBR.

Voila !

Hope this will help other people

Gilles