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XP - locked out because of Swap File / drive letters

  • 21-01-2005 5:15pm
    #1
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,385 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    There was an old NT4 machine that wouldn't boot - dll missing or somesuch. So I replaced it with a 2K Pro Machine and put the NT4 drive in it to copy the info over.

    Explorer was just white and did not show any drives, so just went in to command prompt and Xcopy over the files to a folder on the 2K drive. Shutdown and took out the NT4 drive. Powered the 2K machine up again and when logon you get a message that the swap file is too small and after a few minutes you are at the logon screen again - same in safe mode too. Put back in the NT4 drive and was able to login.

    The problem was that the 2K machine had labelled it's own drive as E: and was using the NT4 drive as C: so of course most programs didn't work. After shortcutting IE to e:\program... etc. could get MMC running - ran mmc diskmgmt.msc from the command prompt to see drive letters.

    Then removed the drive letter on the NT4 drive to free up C: and changed E: to C: on the 2K drive, rebooted for the changes to take effect and back to square one, windows won't start cos of the swapfile is too small. - The PC has 128MB so should be able to start 2K in safe mode without a swap file.

    Anyone any ideas on to change the swapfile mapping / turn it off at a recovery console or change the system drive letter without having to log in ??

    I could reinstall 2K, but then there are service packs and patches to go over the top and it's a hell of a lot of time to spend on a setting that would probably get inherited anyway.


Comments

  • #2
    Nukem
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,082 ✭✭✭Nukem


    Is there someway to partition the drive and install 2000 on the partition,boot from the partioned drive and fix the other one or transfer over the Pks?

    Would Partition Magic do it.


  • #3
    moridin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 931 ✭✭✭moridin


    I'm 100% sure that there's something that you can run to change that swapfile mapping, I've done the same thing myself and afterwards I looked it up.

    I used to have the command on my system but I can't find it. I think it was something that you run in debug.

    I'll keep looking for you...


  • #4
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,385 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Nukem wrote:
    Is there someway to partition the drive and install 2000 on the partition,boot from the partioned drive and fix the other one or transfer over the Pks?

    Would Partition Magic do it.
    Thanks, but no thanks - as in my original post I reckon the chances of it reinheriting the setting are too high and there would be too much work involved with too little certainty of success ( I really hate these sort of problems in NT / 2K /XP )
    Partition magic - creating a drive hmm.. I've no licensed copy and have seen one drive trashed by it so I'd probably use QTParted despite it's failings..

    moridin - half the battle is knowing if something is a wild goose chase or not. Once the americans made the Atomic bomb then it was worth others trying to replicate the feat.


  • #5
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    This is a tricky one to solve. The drive letters are saved in the registry and unless you can edit the registry remotely you're probably out of luck.

    You might need to do a complete reinstall. It won't inherit the settings again, provided that the NT4 drive either isn't present or is set as the slave drive.


  • #6
    Tivoli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,008 ✭✭✭Tivoli


    seen this happen loads of times

    it cant create a swapfile on C cause it doesn't exit, but it tries to boot without a swapfile, but also cant find your documents and settings folder for the same reason so can load your HKEY_CURRENT_USER and bangs out


    just boot from a win98 boot disk and run fdisk /mbr


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  • #7
    ColmOT [MSFT]
    Closed Accounts Posts: 545 ✭✭✭ColmOT [MSFT]


    What master/slave configuration was the NT4 disk in when you installed it into the W2K box?
    W2K shouldn't care what's on the newly added drive to boot and log in.
    I suspect that this is more than a W2K issue.

    Did you make sure that the NT4 disk was a slave?


  • #8
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,385 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    ColmOT [MSFT] wrote:
    What master/slave configuration was the NT4 disk in when you installed it into the W2K box?
    W2K shouldn't care what's on the newly added drive to boot and log in.
    I suspect that this is more than a W2K issue.

    Did you make sure that the NT4 disk was a slave?
    Second drive went in on the CDROM cable. So it was on the Secondary IDE controller and I'd swear blind it was Cable Select

    That bit about looking for a swap file on C:, so I'll need yet another drive then , unless there is an option in the BOOT.INI to not use a swap file

    Thanks all


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