"Your system has no pagefile...."

[Julie]

I wanted to transfer my Windows 2000 Pro system to a larger HD, so I cloned my system with Ghost. When I switched over my new HD as master and tried to bootup, I got this message:

"Your system has no pagefile or the pagefile is too small." Then it gave instructions on how to create/increase the pagefile by going into My Computer.
Problem is, how can I get into My Computer if the thing won't boot??
It won't even boot in Safe Mode (same error message).

There is an article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base , but it refers to Win XP
and to NTFS systems (Mine is Fat32). There is another article that refers to Win 2000 but this assumes that you have already booted.

Can I do it from the Recovery Console? If so, how?
Any advice would be appreciated.

[Statica]

Hmm .. was the previous filesystem on Win2k NTFS?
it maybe possible to do it through the recovery console, I dont know for sure. The key is to see whether the reg.exe command is available for use through the recovery console, if yes then we should be able to feed in new registry values.
Try going to the recovery console and seeing if the following works .. issue the following command verbatim (with the quotes as well):
REG QUERY "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management"

If the command works, you should see something like this output:

ClearPageFileAtShutdown REG_DWORD 0x0 DisablePagingExecutive REG_DWORD 0x0 LargeSystemCache REG_DWORD 0x0 NonPagedPoolQuota REG_DWORD 0x0 NonPagedPoolSize REG_DWORD 0x0 PagedPoolQuota REG_DWORD 0x0 PagedPoolSize REG_DWORD 0x0 SecondLevelDataCache REG_DWORD 0x0 SystemPages REG_DWORD 0xc3000 PagingFiles REG_MULTI_SZ C:\pagefile.sys 768 1536\0\0 PhysicalAddressExtension REG_DWORD 0x0 SessionViewSize REG_DWORD 0x30 SessionPoolSize REG_DWORD 0x4

If you can get the output correctly, then please post back here with the output. Also would be helpful if you could post how much RAM you've got on your system so that a new registry file can be created.

[GaryRouth]

If you continue to receive the error, even after correcting the pagefile values in the Registry (using Statica's guide), a "repair" install of Win2000 on your new ghosted drive should fix things.

If all's well at that point, and you have no need for dual-booting, or have any other reason to stay with FAT32, you could then convert to Win2000's NTFS without losing any data.

There are several other tactics you can try as well [I just like the simplicity of "over-the-top reinstallations", since they tend to work well & only take about 40 minutes nowadays] - you can see some of the other methods in this thread from the TechSpot boards http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windo...ton-Ghost.html

If you haven't done a "repair" over-the-top reinstallation of Windows 2000 before, here's a step-by-step guide, complete with screenshots, from the folks over at windowsreinstall.com http://www.windowsreinstall.com/wind...pair/index.htm

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Julie]

My previous system was also Fat32. I was dual booting with Win 98 and would have continued to do so if the transfer had been successful.
I was actually about to do a fresh re-install, then thought I'd better ask
here first. Thanks for the instructions on doing a repair reinstallation, Gary, it sounds much better than doing a new install and losing everything.
As for your suggestions, Statica, that sounds REAL scary! tho I was desperate enough to try.

But something happened in the meantime. There was another Ghost image on the HD. It was made 2 weeks ago when I was going to do the transfer but didn't get around to it. So I tried it and the OS booted up without a hitch!!

Now I'm very tempted to put that previous image back in again, just so I can try out the suggestions from both of you. What do you think? I still have the old Ghost image if I messed things up. Or...maybe if it ain't broke..?

[GaryRouth]

That's pretty interesting! One Ghost image works, and the other doesn't = and yet they were made within two weeks of each other.

I suppose if the current Win2000 is behaving itself, and your programs are working OK - heck, why not keep it. It seems that the problem has happened to a number of Ghost users, but there's no clear agreement on it's exact cause.

[It's possible that there are several ways to cause the error!]

Glad you made it through OK.
. . . Gary

[If you do decide to research & test different approaches, I'm sure we'll find it interesting reading ]

[Julie]

I think I'll just leave things alone for now. There's been enough excitement
for the last few days.
But I'm the kind of person who always thinks "if it ain't broke, why not try mess it up..."
So I will probably try those other methods later.
Thanks for everything.