paging file

[goldmeier]

I am having a problem with the Win2k paging file.
Here is the story. I prepared a hard drive with Win2k and a couple of other programs. My company was getting about 15 new computers in a very short time span. I figured ghosting the hard drive would be the best way to go about it.
I installed a few computers by cloning the hard drive from the prepared drive to each new computer as it comes in.

It worked fine for a few computers. I just cloned a computer, but when I try to log in to Windows, I get a message "Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small" It then gives me instructions how to change the paging file size, but when I click "ok", it gives me the login screen again and I hvae no way of getting past this message.
I tried booting in Safe Mode, but I got the same message.

How can I log into Windows and adjust the paging file?

Thanks
Rafi

[River19]

Can you adjust paging files settings from the Recovery Console? If not, then I would try maybe using the ERD to try and repair the Windows installation on the drive. If that doesn't work, if it's just a cloned drive, why don't you just try and re-install the image onto the disk.

[goldmeier]

I found an article from Microsoft (Q249321) that describes this problem and says if it a cloned drive, remove it and logon. Since my cloned drive is the only hdd in the computer, my only option was to reinstall. Just finished doing it.
Microsoft says it is a problem with the boot partition drive letter.
It is weird because I cloned other comps from the same disk with no problem

[thirdfey]

It doesn't just happen with a cloned drive, sometimes SP1 would fix, and sometimes SP1 would cause it. I remember a MS article saying to turn the swap file off, boot down, boot up, log in, boot down, boot up, log in, and reset your swap settings. I think that was the order

[goldmeier]

Problem is it did not let me login....

[scutterboy]

Have you tried just running a repair from Win2K CD?

[goldmeier]

Yes. I repaired and it found files damaged and repaired them, but I still could not login.

[StevePorter]

Hm-m-m-m-m... I had a similar problem where W2K said my page file was too small, yet refused to accept a new page file size. I found that I'd inadvertantly deleted the user "SYSTEM" under security settings for the C-drive. Once re-enabled, everything worked great again.

I hope this helps...

[greeniris]

Twice now I've had this problem on Windows 2000 Advanced Server, installed on the same PC. Basically there is not one byte of diskspace available on the 20 GB drive. Nothing can be written to the drive, copied from or even renamed. The drive is 100% NTFS, not partitioned, and the system was just configured to be the domain controller with active directory, DHCP and DNS. All were configured with the "configure your server" wizards. The next morning I got WINS error messages and then the familiar paging file is missing or corrupt, Windows 2000 has created a new one....ya, a whopper of a paging file that renders the system unbootable - even in recovery mode.
Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[greeniris]

...one more comment...
When booted to the repair option from my four "makeboot" Windows 2000 installation diskettes, I cannot change directories to anything with a space in it...such as c:\program files
Thought it was a long file name issue, but 9 contiguous characters is ok, but nothing with a space.
Anyone know how to get around this?

[Borut_P]

I had the same problem!
Solution :
When cloning , the boot partition should not be larger than 8 GB , when formated with NTFS.Sometimes it won`t even boot ,with new drive that had partition larger than 8GB?????

Use rather Fat32 for clonning, and then converted to NTFS later.And don`t forget to use sysprep utility.

To be on a safe side , disable pagefile when clonning.

And Microsoft had a point , there is a problem with drive letters . I make it happend. When i cloned 4GB drive to 20GB drive and left it inside , a got a wery interesting configuration. The small drive 4GB had the drive letter C , while boot drive 20GB had the letter D. When i remove 4GB drive from machine , well i got the warning and i was at the logon screen again ??????

[condor]

Hi there !

you're problem is that you didn't use Microsoft SYSPREP before you closed the image !

USE SYSPREP !!!!!!!!

but if you don't know how or can't or won't ...

here's fixing your problem without using Sysprep:

before you close an Image

- Delete all local accounts except Administrator
- make sure you have no left over profiles or unknown accounts in user manager

1. go to start -> run

2. type "regedit"

3. go to :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management

Change the value of "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to "1"

4. close regedit

5. shutdown the computer

6. create the Image

7. after you load the Image make sure you change the value to "0" again ( or shut downs last a long long time )


Good Luck


[This message has been edited by condor (edited January 25, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by condor (edited January 29, 2001).]

[techleet]

Condor is just plain UNSTOPPABLE. Wow.

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00111111.11001000.10001110.10011010
11111111.11111111.11111111.11111000
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Subnetting is key.

[goldmeier]

I just cloned another hdd with the same image disk. It worked fine. It seems what I must have done on the disk with the paging file problem was I kept the image disk as the slave and the target disk the master. I now put the image disk as master and it works fine. Microsoft was correct in the problem being the differing disk letters.

Also,I used Sysprep.exe this time and it worked great. Much easier than getting a message like "this name is already on the network..."

Thanks
Rafi

[TechieChick]

I'm with you Condor..
I use SYSPREP and Drive Image Pro for Windows 2000...
great combination, no clone problems!

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TechieChick
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Byte Me!