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re: Now a Loading Personal Settings Loop during boot causing bootup failure - arrghh - help, Dex! Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 7:52 am Posted by Kiwi (2228 messages posted) I went ahead with aRepair Install, and it also got stuck at the Paging File, the first reboot after starting. On a hunch, to see if it would disturb whatever drive renaming that WinXP had done (to W2K's setup), I added a Slaved Hdd to the hardware. Now, it doesn't complain about a paging file, but it does loop through the Personal Settings boxes, first Applying them, then Saving them, rapidly, occasionally playing the Windows loading tune. Surely there is some way to use XP, or the Safe Mode Command line, to undo whatever happened between installing the two OSes? . Kiwi ** On Friday, January 29, 2010 at 5:41 am, Kiwi wrote: >The boot loop thread I found with search was different. > >http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win2000/1186168603 > >My daughter in law's PC suddenly lost track of its ethernet and before >trying to RESTORE (in XP), she tried other stuff to the extent that I decided >to pull the drive to see if I can get it sorted, and swapped in a fresh >drive. This time, I was setting it up to dual-boot, and W2K was doing fine >until XP was installed. > >Now, when attempting to boot into W2K, even in Safe Mode, there is a box >warning about no paging file or too small of a paging file. And it never >clears out of the way, just loops (moderately slowly in normal mode, and >very, extremely slowly, in Safe Mode). > >It's a new one on me, and Google didn't give me anything that I could >use, other than suggesting a repair install, which AFAIK, may cause >problems with Windows XP. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Now a Loading Personal Settings Loop during boot causing bootup failure - arrghh - help, Dex! Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 8:43 am Posted by Alan Masterman (462 messages posted) Kiwi, it's difficult to know where to start in all this. What on earth possessed you to try and instal a dual-boot system in the middle of fault-finding? Or did you swap out the hard drive because you suspected a hardware fault? Sounds like the kind of client that I would send away with the advice to re-instal from the beginning: highly unlikely that I could charge any realistic amount to sort it out. I understand you have to try, of course, it's your daughter-in-law. But still... [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: It's supposed to be a hobby, or leisure-time fun, you know Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 8:58 am Posted by Kiwi (2228 messages posted) I was a software person back in the day (while employed, as opposed to this current condition referred to as retirement), although when money was tight, I have built my own personal PCs off and on for maybe 25 years now. Mostly now, when friends / relatives aren't mangling perfectly good systems, I play with the oldest of the PnP hardware, and middling-old of MS' Windows OSes, and really old games from the same early 32-bit days. I still prefer Win2000 over anything newer or older, though. Carol (eldest son's lady) has a loaner with W2K as its only OS, and she actually is doing fine with it. I'd figured I would use Windows' own Transfer Settings function to make Windows XP on the replacement HD work like she had hers working, but give her the chance for W2K just as an option. I think Dell is where the booby trap started from. She was so anxious about her settings and files on the older PC that the current one replaced, that I cloned from her old Hdd to a newer, larger one, then ran a Repair on the result in the replacement machine (previous loaner I'd used, with Win2K, when I had anyone's PC over here for more than a day at a time), so not really new. I should've used the Transfer Settings function last year, and had her reinstall the programs to match (I suppose I have it out of sequence, but I've done both things a good number of times since I started playing with WinTel PCs). . Kiwi ** On Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 8:43 am, Alan Masterman wrote: >Kiwi, it's difficult to know where to start in all this. >What on earth possessed you to try and instal a dual-boot system in the middle of >fault-finding? >Or did you swap out the hard drive because you suspected a hardware fault? >Sounds like the kind of client that I would send away with the advice to re-instal >from the beginning: highly unlikely that I could charge any realistic amount to >sort it out. I understand you have to try, of course, it's your daughter-in-law. > But still... [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: No Paging File dialog during boot causing bootup looping - arrghh - help, Dex! Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 8:28 pm Posted by dhm (1069 messages posted) Kiwi, I think I may have found the problem. On another forum I found that XP has an optional setting that deletes the PAGEFILE.SYS when XP shuts down. If your copy of XP is set that way then it keeps deleting the PAGEFILE.SYS that Win2K expects. Here's the info as little as I know: www.techmixer.com/pagefilesys-how-to-remove-pagefilesys-from-windows Look for the response by Matthias Dailey. Since that may move here's where he says XP sets it: Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options > Shutdown: clear virtual memory pagefile He crossreferences this for advice on XP's Group Policy editor: www.theeldergeek.com/group_policy_editor.htm Here's hoping. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: I ended up running back to back Repair Installs! Friday, February 5, 2010 at 7:59 am Posted by Kiwi (2228 messages posted) Problem solved, to the extent I could deal with, by first installing atop Windows2000, getting that back in shape after that, then I had to do the same to WindowsXP! Thanks, everyone! . Kiwi ** [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 2000 Discussion Forum