XPHome won't create pagefile

[MrNiceguy]

I'm working on a friend's PC, and I'll admit this problem's got me stumped. It's a Dell P4 1.7 Ghz, XP Home with 128 MB ram. When they brought it to me, it wouldn't boot - complained about missing files. They told me the machine had frozen while installing a Windows update, so they had killed the power. I ended up using their XP install CD to do an OS repair, and this has gotten Windows working, but with no virtual memory. I get the following error message:

Limited Virtual Memory
Your system has no paging file, or the paging file is too small.
To fix this problem, go to System in Control Panel, click on the Advanced tab, and under Performance, click Settings. On the Advanced tab, click Change. Click 'Custom Size' and then type an initial or maximum paging file size.

The problem is that Windows refuses to apply any changes I attempt. It shows a current pagefile size of 0. I try setting the initial and max to 384, click "Set" and nothing changes. I have tried disabling virtual memory, restarting, re-enabling it, restarting -- still nothing. I have tried system managed, still no luck. "Currently Allocated" always shows 0 and pagefile.sys is nowhere to be found.

I did some searching with Google and in the MS Knowlegebase, and found this: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q315270 Basicly, this problem can happen when the System account or Administrators group loses access rights to the c: drive, so the pagefile can't be created. I did check effective rights and both System and Administrators had full rights to c: I did try manually specifying full rights for both, and I even tried enabling full rights for the Everyone group, without any success.

I also tried the fix here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257758/EN-US/ even though it lists just NT and 2000 as affected. No help there either.

Geez... you thought running XP on 128 MB was bad, just try it without virtual memory. I get "Out of memory" errors just trying to open the device manager. Does anyone have an idea how to fix this? I'll give the [H]ard folks a few days before I start backing stuff up for the wipe and re-install.

Thanks

 

[djnes]

In my opinion, if your having a problem with access rights and permissions, especially involving the admin and the C drive, you might spend less time backing up and re-installing from a clean format, than you would trying to sort out the permissions.

 

[MrNiceguy]

Probably, and if it was my PC, I would have already. Since it's someone else's, there's the problem of what gets backed up, what programs will need to be reinstalled, can they find all their software CDs, ad infinitum...

 

[BuGaLoU]

Probably, and if it was my PC, I would have already. Since it's someone else's, there's the problem of what gets backed up, what programs will need to be reinstalled, can they find all their software CDs, ad infinitum...

You didnt screw the computer up either though, it's really not your problem. Sometimes a clean install is your only option and a problem like that sounds kind of nasty. NTFS sounds foobared. I suppose you could *attempt* to ghost the drive to a FAT32 drive, and then either back to the NTFS drive, or just keep the FAT32 drive. This will whip out all the permisions. Now if ghost will let you clone NTFS to FAT32 is another story!

 

[djnes]

That's what I tell other people. You didn't maintain the PC, and now you need my help....here's your option.

 

[Phoenix86]

I'd have to agree. Two things make this scream format.

First. "When they brought it to me, it wouldn't boot - complained about missing files. They told me the machine had frozen while installing a Windows update, so they had killed the power."

Second. "I ended up using their XP install CD to do an OS repair, and this has gotten Windows working, but with no virtual memory. I get the following error message:"

Windows failing while running an update can screw with things pretty bad, doubly so with service packs. Machines that get OS errors after an OS reinstall isn't good.

You have both, so I would seriously consider a reinstall.