Page File missing or too small - can't boot

After creating a clone file in a Windows 2000 Small Business Server system, get an error message after the windows logon screen that the Page File is either missing or too small. Suggested solution is to right click on My Computer, and change the size of the page file.............. but you can't get to My Computer if you can't logon!

This is evidently an issue as to how Windows 2000 records identifying information concerning each hard drive.

Here's the edited version of Msoft's why: "Windows 2000 maintains a record of drive letters in a registry based database and re-assigns drive letters based on Globally Unique Identifiers (GUID) recorded for each volume. Should the volume GUID change or be duplicated (by hard drive cloning software), the original drive letter may not be re-assigned to the boot volume."


Full information is at
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=249321

Four solutions are suggested - three pretty complex. I tried #4 - the simple one - booting to a Windows 95 startup floppy and running fdisk /mbr

It worked.

Lots of discussion leading up to this solution at previous thread. (Clone file problem..... Urgent)

Jay

 

Hi again Jay,

The phenomenon of retained DiskID is not just a Windows 2000 thing - it also applies to Win NT and Win XP.

I posted a link in your <previous thread> to a Dan Goodell article that explains the whole thing, including the Win9x fdisk /mbr fix.

Regards