Paging File Error messages

The Short Story:
Everytime I start Win2K Pro it gives me an error about "Paging file missing or too small, go into control panel and adjust....etc. ". Then Windows restarts and the cycle repeats.


The Full Story:

I have Compaq Presario 2710US laptop that I had in 4 partitions on the hard disk;

- c: a buggy installation of Win2k (FAT32)
- d: a good installation of Win2k (FAT32)
- e: XPHome (what the machine originally came with) (NTFS)
- f: user files (FAT32)

-I wanted to delete c: and e:, and keep the good W2K.
-So I made Ghost copies of everything.
-Then I used the DOS version of partition magic.
-After several stages of resizing, creating, changing logical to primary and back, and deleting (the exact sequence of which I did not record- but I probably messed around with things more than I should have),

-I ended up with new c: (which is made by what used to be c:, d: and e: ) and the old F: which was left unchanged, now called D:

- During working with Partition Magic, while I was resizing partitions, it gave me a note saying the new resized partition with exceed the 1024 cluster size limit, which might make it unbootable. I was not sure what that meant, but I ignored this and went on.

-I restored the Ghost image from the good Win2k partition into the new C:, but it became unbootable (Non-system disk error). It is set as my active primary FAT32 parition, and the new D: is the extended parition.

- I realized that my boot files must have been on the old C: and got wiped out.

-I used my Win2K installation CD. Tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the Recovery Console. No luck.

- I hit the MS Knowledge Base. It suggesed installing a "helper" installation of Win2k under another subdirctory on the hard drive, just to restore the boot files to the root directory of C:

- I did that, now I have the "helper" Win2k that starts with no problem. Obviously with no device drivers or the existing software.

- When I try to start the "good" Win2k. I get into this endless loop about the paging file (as above).

- I have tried (carefully) tinkering around with the registery, boot.ini and looked at the MS Knowledge base, but can't find anything that works.

- I am trying to avoid re-installing all my device drivers and softwares under the new "helper" Win2k all over again..

Thanks
Kevin

 

Kevin - would you please post the exact error message you are getting?

Also, how large is your new system partition?

I'd really like to be able to help you since Wilmington is the reasons most bad storms don't hit the rest of us nearly as often and I feel I owe anyone living there.

 

1- The message says:

" Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small.
Go to My computer- Properties-Advanced- Performance Options- Change. Select Drive.
To create a new paging file, click the Initial Size box
- or-
To increase paging file size, click the Maximum Size box,a dn then type a larger size.
When you have finished, click Set and then OK "

2- The system partition is more than 5 gigs.

And, to live in a place as nice as Wilmington, I'm ready to put up with the hurricane risk. I go for a run on the ocean everyday. Where's Concord, anyway?

 

If fdisk /mbr etc. didn't work, try changing the Winlogon registry key of the corrupt install from the parallel installation. See Q249321

 

Unixfan,
That article is very close, but it's not working. It recognizes that you can't login, and you keep coming back to the logon screen in Windows. But then it talks about using Regedit and Regedt32, which you can't get to in the first place.
I tried changing the drive letters from the parallel installation using Regedit (change C: to D:, which is where the original installation was) , but nothing changes. The original installation still is stuck at the login screen. And the parallel installation starts as usual, only the registry now shows the same harddrive listed twice with C: and D: labels.
I am not sure what next.
Thanks
Kevin

 

Can you clarify, did you load the SYSTEM registry hive (from WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG) of the original installation using regedt32 from the parallel install?

 

Changing w2k's drive letter causes all those problems. See MS KB article Q249321. At this point the easiest thing to do is backup important data and do a format and reinstall.

 

Unixfan,

No I haven't. That wasn't explained in the article. I don't know how to do it.

I am getting close to re-installing windows. I have been having USB problems,too. And I might need to change the HAL, which would need a new install, anyway.