Low Virtual Memory

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Guest

Using Windows2000, I receive a warning that I am low on virtual memory. I shut down all programs and reboot the computer. Windows will not load. It gets to the black screen with the white progress bar at the bottom and hangs. This is the second time this has happened. The first time I was not able to bring Windows back up at all. Emergency Repair process did not work. Last Known Configuration did not work. Booting into Safe Mode did not work. I had to reinstall Win2000 and all my programs. Is there a way to correct this and what is causing it? I recently put in a new hard drive. Could this be the problem?
 
Thanks for your reply John John. Unfortunately this did not work. When the computer rebooted it hung in the exact same place. I tried to reboot in Safe Mode and it got this far:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT\System32\ntoskrnl.exe
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT\System32\hal.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT\System32\BOOTVID.DLL
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT\System32\config\system

and hung there. Any other suggestions?

----- John John wrote: -----

You'll have to fix the pagefile.sys in the recovery console. See Here:

How to Delete the Pagefile.sys File in Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=255205

or see here:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270-1051528.html

Windows will recreate the file when it reboots. The file could have
gotten lost to windows when you added that new drive. Maybe the drive
letter assignments changed.

John
 
What have you got on that machine? Do you have more than one operating
system? Or some kind of virtual machine? If you only have one copy of
Windows 2000 try running the repair console again but this time try
repairing the Boot files. Insert the W2K CD and chose Manual Repair
"Inspect Startup Environment".

Did you by any chance, when you installed your second hard drive, end up
slaving the wrong drive? That is did the new drive become Master and
the operating system drive become "Slave"?

John
 
Tried "Inspect Startup Environment" with the same result - says repairs were completed but on reboot it hangs at "Starting Windows" screen.
There is no virtual machine t6hat I'm aware of. It has 2 hard drives. C: is master and has WIN2000 Pro on it. D: is slave and has no operating system on it - it's used only for file backup. C: is the new hard drive (since the original C: drive died). D: has never been a primary drive.

----- John John wrote: -----

What have you got on that machine? Do you have more than one operating
system? Or some kind of virtual machine? If you only have one copy of
Windows 2000 try running the repair console again but this time try
repairing the Boot files. Insert the W2K CD and chose Manual Repair
"Inspect Startup Environment".

Did you by any chance, when you installed your second hard drive, end up
slaving the wrong drive? That is did the new drive become Master and
the operating system drive become "Slave"?

John
 
Ok. I had to ask about the slave because someone here had once managed
to completely screw up an NT system by trying to slave a drive and with
a combination of turning drives off in the bios and booting the slave &
changing files on the drive and then switching the drives back around he
succeeded in his efforts to render the system inoperable.

As for your problem, when you got this new drive did you install Windows
2000 on it from scratch or did you ghost or image it onto the new drive?
Is this a SCSI drive or a regular IDE drive? It looks like your
Windows 2000 is having difficulty recognizing a piece of hardware.

John
 
In reading other posts, I see that another user (Author: Mike - Subject: Win2000 won't complete boot) is having the exact same problem that I am. I also have SP4. Could this be an issue with SP4 or perhaps a previously unidentied virus

----- John John wrote: ----

What have you got on that machine? Do you have more than one operating
system? Or some kind of virtual machine? If you only have one copy of
Windows 2000 try running the repair console again but this time try
repairing the Boot files. Insert the W2K CD and chose Manual Repair
"Inspect Startup Environment"

Did you by any chance, when you installed your second hard drive, end up
slaving the wrong drive? That is did the new drive become Master and
the operating system drive become "Slave"

Joh

CJ wrote
 
I installed WIN2000 Pro from scratch using a CD that has SP4 incorporated in it. This was sent to me by Microsoft as a replacement for a damaged original WIN200 Pro disk. The drive is IDE. It's a WD 7200rpm 40GB

----- John John wrote: -----

Ok. I had to ask about the slave because someone here had once managed
to completely screw up an NT system by trying to slave a drive and with
a combination of turning drives off in the bios and booting the slave &
changing files on the drive and then switching the drives back around he
succeeded in his efforts to render the system inoperable.

As for your problem, when you got this new drive did you install Windows
2000 on it from scratch or did you ghost or image it onto the new drive?
Is this a SCSI drive or a regular IDE drive? It looks like your
Windows 2000 is having difficulty recognizing a piece of hardware.

John
 
I don't think this is a particular issue with SP4. SP4 has been out for
a while now and we would have heard a lot more about it if it was an SP4
issue. It could be a virus or boot sector virus but that's a wild guess.

John
 
I'll have to think about this. With an IDE drive there should be no
hardware issue as far as the drive is concerned, WD 40 gig IDE is old
news for Windows 2000 so I can't see it being the problem, especially
since you properly installed W2K from scratch... there should be no
hardware issue there. What puzzles me is that in one of your earlier
post you made reference to these items:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT\System32\hal.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT\System32\BOOTVID.DLL

I don't know if this was called from the normal process of booting a
normal boot.ini file or if these things are actually in the boot.ini
file. At this point I would almost be tempted to install the recovery
console and going into the system to look at that boot.ini file. But
the recovery console is a bit of a last option thing, just ahead of a
parallel install or a completely new install from scratch. Depending on
your file system you could look at the boot.ini file with a DOS disk or
with NTFS DOS... or install the recovery console.

Being that you have tried all the repair options, including repair with
ERD the options are not that many. My mind keeps coming back to
boot.ini. I'll see if I can think of or find something else, maybe
another reader has a suggestion.

John
 
Well I can't think of anything or find anything that can pinpoint the
problem. You might want to see if you can find something to help you in
these pages:

http://search.support.microsoft.com...chstep=2&querySource=gsfxAdvancedSearch_Query

HOW TO: Troubleshoot Startup Problems in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315396

Description of the Windows 2000 Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;229716

HOW TO: Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;318752

HOW TO: Use Ntdetect.chk to Identify Hardware Problems in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320040

Maybe when you installed the new hard drive a cable or something else
got pulled, bumped, pinched or otherwise became loose. It could be that
there is a third party software causing the problem, maybe something in
the startup folder, or too many things in the startup folder.

Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle. Instead of a no start
problem this might be a slow start problem. It's known that W2k
systems can sometimes get bugs and take as much as 30 minutes or more to
boot. You could boot the pc and leave it alone for 30 to 45 minutes and
see if it boots. If it's a slow boot problem the solution may be
something quite different than the path we're on.

That's all I can do for the time being.

John
 
Thanks for trying John John. I finally gave up trying and just reinstalled Win2000 AGAIN!! I guess it's safe to assume that it will happen again. Hopefully between now and then I can find some pertinent info in the links you provided


----- John John wrote: ----

Well I can't think of anything or find anything that can pinpoint the
problem. You might want to see if you can find something to help you in
these pages

http://search.support.microsoft.com...rchstep=2&querySource=gsfxAdvancedSearch_Quer

HOW TO: Troubleshoot Startup Problems in Windows 200
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;31539

Description of the Windows 2000 Recovery Consol
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;22971

HOW TO: Install and Use the Recovery Console in Windows 200
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;31875

HOW TO: Use Ntdetect.chk to Identify Hardware Problems in Windows 200
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;32004

Maybe when you installed the new hard drive a cable or something else
got pulled, bumped, pinched or otherwise became loose. It could be that
there is a third party software causing the problem, maybe something in
the startup folder, or too many things in the startup folder

Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle. Instead of a no start
problem this might be a slow start problem. It's known that W2k
systems can sometimes get bugs and take as much as 30 minutes or more to
boot. You could boot the pc and leave it alone for 30 to 45 minutes and
see if it boots. If it's a slow boot problem the solution may be
something quite different than the path we're on

That's all I can do for the time being

Joh


John John wrote
 
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