Limited Virtual Memory error: Missing page file after new hard drive install attempt

[judojim]

For my Win2K Pro system I bought a new Western Digital 120 GB hard drive to
replace my old WD 80 GB.

The WD Data Lifeguard Tools disk to disk copy utility did not work for the
new larger drive, i.e, no format, no file copy, etc, AND it blew away the
windows pagefile on my old system drive. Now what happens is that when I
try to boot to the old drive (with the hardware configured just as it was
before I started this hard drive upgradej) I am able boot into Windows just
enough to give the three finger salute (ctrl+alt+del) which then takes me to
the login screen where I type in my username and password. Just after that I
get a Limited Virtual Memory message that says that the paging file is
missing or is too small. The message also details the steps I should take
to correct the page file problem. However, when I click OK on the message, I
am sent back to the ctrl+alt+del prompt where I again put in my password and
badda bing badda boom the same error message appears and I'm now stuck in
and endless cycle.

Since I cannot get into my Windows 2000 system, my question is, how can I
repair/replace the page file?

Microsoft KnowlegeBase article Q257758 does me no good because I cannot get
past the authentication and error message.

I've seen a few newsgroup posts that say that booting to a win98 boot disk
and running fdisk /mbr will fix this problem. However, I'm not so sure
about that because I don't see the correlation between a missing page file
and a broken master boot record.

I'm thinking about booting to the Win2K cdrom and running the repair, but I
don't have a very recent Emergency Repair Disk.

Q812448 sounds rather interesting, but it is also a very complex solution.

Maybe someone has seen this before and knows the exact fix for this problem.



By the way, I called Western Digital support on this question several times
as I worked on this "hard drive upgrade." The first two tiers didn't seem to
know their own software products or the documentation and the third tier
said that this pagefile problem sounded like a Microsoft problem and
proceeded to tell me that sometimes things don't always work. I like
Western Digital products, I like their prices, but they are extremely
limited in tech support and adequate documentation.



Please post any ideas or comments to newsgroup for the benefit of all.

Thanks,

jim

 

[dcdon]

Hi judojim,

Use your ERD and full backup that you have on hand.hehe

boot into BIOS
change your boot order to CD-ROM first
boot to the CD
and choose install
Keep going the it will ask you again if you want to "repair"
Choose repair, and it's a toss up if it'll take
(or you can bite the bullet and bend over to clean the box out)


--

good computing,
don
---------




For my Win2K Pro system I bought a new Western Digital 120 GB hard drive to
replace my old WD 80 GB.

The WD Data Lifeguard Tools disk to disk copy utility did not work for the
new larger drive, i.e, no format, no file copy, etc, AND it blew away the
windows pagefile on my old system drive. Now what happens is that when I
try to boot to the old drive (with the hardware configured just as it was
before I started this hard drive upgradej) I am able boot into Windows just
enough to give the three finger salute (ctrl+alt+del) which then takes me to
the login screen where I type in my username and password. Just after that I
get a Limited Virtual Memory message that says that the paging file is
missing or is too small. The message also details the steps I should take
to correct the page file problem. However, when I click OK on the message, I
am sent back to the ctrl+alt+del prompt where I again put in my password and
badda bing badda boom the same error message appears and I'm now stuck in
and endless cycle.

Since I cannot get into my Windows 2000 system, my question is, how can I
repair/replace the page file?

Microsoft KnowlegeBase article Q257758 does me no good because I cannot get
past the authentication and error message.

I've seen a few newsgroup posts that say that booting to a win98 boot disk
and running fdisk /mbr will fix this problem. However, I'm not so sure
about that because I don't see the correlation between a missing page file
and a broken master boot record.

I'm thinking about booting to the Win2K cdrom and running the repair, but I
don't have a very recent Emergency Repair Disk.

Q812448 sounds rather interesting, but it is also a very complex solution.

Maybe someone has seen this before and knows the exact fix for this problem.



By the way, I called Western Digital support on this question several times
as I worked on this "hard drive upgrade." The first two tiers didn't seem to
know their own software products or the documentation and the third tier
said that this pagefile problem sounded like a Microsoft problem and
proceeded to tell me that sometimes things don't always work. I like
Western Digital products, I like their prices, but they are extremely
limited in tech support and adequate documentation.



Please post any ideas or comments to newsgroup for the benefit of all.

Thanks,

jim

 

[Joe Donaldson]

Had same problem and could not get by the Paging/Swap file error.
Tried everything I knew of including WIndows Repair utility. Even
tried Ghost instead of LifeGuard. Tried to create a paging file on the
slave drive then using that as the master-still had problem.

I ended up giving up since after about 4 hours, the drive just stopped
running. Motor went out. Heard this has happened to a few of the
wondrous Western Digital 80gb drives with 8mb cache heavily discounted
via rebate of $40 or $60 I found at Best Buy.

Not sure if it is a drive problem or one of those great Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional things when your hardware changes out goes
your registration of the OS.

Spoke to a technician at CompUSA and they have not seen to get by the
problem either without a complete reformat and reinstall of the OS.

I have read a few posts and articles on this but there appears to be
no simple solution to this.

If there was, I would go buy another drive.

Thanks for any solutions to this problem

Joe