Microsoft KB Archive/295449

= Service Pack Installation May Not Work on Computers with Small System Partition =

PSS ID Number: 295449

Article Last Modified on 11/14/2003

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

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This article was previously published under Q295449



SYMPTOMS
The installation of a Windows 2000 service pack may not succeed on a computer with a small system partition.



CAUSE
Many administrators install their boot loader files on a small system partition formatted using the FAT file system, and then install the operating system on a larger boot partition that is formatted with the NTFS file system. This allows the administrator to access the boot files if they become corrupted or if changes need to be made to the Boot.ini file, and still protect the operating system and data with NTFS security.

The service pack installer calculates the disk space that is required to install updated files. During this process, there are a number of variables that could cause the required disk space to increase or decrease. Subsequently, the installer adds 30 MB to the calculated space required to correct for these variables. If the system partition is smaller than the space required for the file updates plus 30 MB, the service pack installation does not succeed and generates a message stating that there is not enough disk space to proceed with the installation.



RESOLUTION
Before you install the service pack, you can manually copy the boot loader files that have updated binaries in the service pack to the system folder. When the Service Pack installer performs a version check on these files, it will determine that they are already current versions and will not calculate the space required to replace them. Therefore, the small system partition will not be part of the space required calculations.

Typically, the only boot loader files that would be updated in a service pack include the Ntldr and Ntdetect.com files. The Boot.ini file is typically not updated, and the Ntbootdd.sys file is created by the administrator by using the SCSI controller driver on controllers that do not have their BIOS enabled.

To manually copy the updated files to the system folder, expand the service pack files by using the w2ksp2.exe -x command. Copy the updated boot loader files from the expanded file set to the system partition.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Keywords: kbprb kbsetup KB295449

Technology: kbwin2000AdvServ kbwin2000AdvServSearch kbwin2000Pro kbwin2000ProSearch kbwin2000Search kbwin2000Serv kbwin2000ServSearch kbWinAdvServSearch

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