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  • 1.  Error: could not allocate page table memory

    Posted Oct 08, 2014 06:26 AM

    Hello my name is Marcus and i just started working at a school as IT technician who uses Symantec ghostcast and i must admit im fairly new to it and have only used it a few times.
    My problem is with the new laptops we are using (Lenovo L440).

    For the older laptops (Lenovo L430, Lenovo L420) there have been boot images already made before i started working here and they seem to be working fine but not for the L440.

    i use PC DOS and not WinPE since PC DOS were already setup, and do it over the network.

    The initial problem was that it did not even get to the Ghost cast menu, i solved this by going in to the autoexec.bat and adding "ghost.exe"  the original file only had "ngctdos.exe"

    After that i got: Cannot create a file preservation metadata file at path "."
    I went back in to the autoexec.bat and poked around a bit, and solved the issue by removing "CD \GHOST" and chaged "ghost.exe" to "\ghost\ghost.exe" to make it run.

    Now i get to my current problem, i get as far as i can type in Session name and select what disk i want to create image from and just as it starts so tranfering files and it just stops at "Current file: 88 chs_boot.ttf" or sometimes at "Current file: 91 kor_boot.ttf" and gives me the following error message:

    Error: could not allocate page table memory
    General failure reading Drive A
    Insert disk with \COMMAND.COM in driva A

    Press any key to continue. . .

    i've tried to change location of ghost.exe to the root folder and change that in autoexec.bat to match up but that just gave me more problems so right now im stuck with that error message, if there is anyone who could help i will be very greatful!



  • 2.  RE: Error: could not allocate page table memory

    Posted Oct 08, 2014 07:13 AM

    Hi Marcus,

    Can I draw your attention to the search engine which is present at the top of this page? Had you entered "could not allocate page table memory" into the search engine, it would have led you to this thread:

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/could-not-allocate-page-table-memory-1

    Read the comment by Nigel Bree - one of the developers of Ghost.



  • 3.  RE: Error: could not allocate page table memory

    Posted Oct 08, 2014 07:26 AM

    I did search for it but did not really find anything useful, but that thread must have slipped by and i have not seen it. I will give it a try and see if it can solve my problem!

    Thanks



  • 4.  RE: Error: could not allocate page table memory

    Posted Oct 08, 2014 08:44 AM

    I took a look at it now it seems i have another error.
    Error: could not allocate page table memory
    Type ghreboot to attemt to return to Windows
    A:\>



  • 5.  RE: Error: could not allocate page table memory

    Posted Oct 08, 2014 12:46 PM

    Is this not the same error you were getting before?

    What concerns me is the message about returning to windows.  Can I check that you are NOT trying to run Ghost under a command prompt from within windows?  You need to be booting to DOS.

    Can I also check, if you are booting direct to DOS, what sort of boot device you are using. It is a floppy drive on a USB port, or a USB stick ?

    I don't know if this is your first job or a change of job, so I may cover ground you are already familiar with.

    Modern hardware comes with SATA hard disks, for which DOS has NO support at all. In order to allow DOS to talk to SATA hard disks, you need to go into the BIOS and under hard disk settings, enable "compatibility mode". It may be called something else, but essentially it translates SATA instructions into the older PATA format. DOS also has limits on the size of hard disk it can access and bioses can only get around this to a limited extent.

    That is why you will find that the general recommendation nowadays is to dump DOS in favour of WinPE. This is a command line operating system that is based on the Windows kernel and therefore can use Windows drivers to access modern hardware such as the latest NIC chipsets and SATA chipsets.  If the version of Ghost you are using is 11.5.1.2266 then the software already includes a version of WinPE that can be used to build boot environments. Due to the age of Ghost, the version of WinPE is based on the Vista kernel but there are articles in Connect on how to use WinPE V3 with Ghost, which is based on the Win 7 kernel and uses Win 7 drivers.

    Finally, in respect of your DOS version in your current boot environment, is it based on XP or another version?  Mae sure if testing a different version of HIMEM.SYS that you have either replaced/renamed the old version or correctly changed the path in config.sys    Occasionally, there may also be issues with mouse drivers in autoexec.bat, so you can rem out any calls to a mouse driver as a test.