"No Valid System Partitions Exist" During Setup on Compressed Drive (222972)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
This article was previously published under Q222972

SYMPTOMS

When you are installing or upgrading to Windows 2000, you may receive the following error message even if the boot partition is not compressed:
No valid system partitions exist

CAUSE

This behavior can occur if a drive contains a partition that has been compressed with the compression tools included with Microsoft Windows 95 or Microsoft Windows 98. These compression methods are not supported by Windows 2000. When Setup detects the presence of such a compressed drive, it assumes that any installation would be invalid.

RESOLUTION

Remove compression from all partitions before installing Windows 2000.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 2000.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/13/2003
Keywords:kberrmsg kbprb kbsetup KB222972
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.