Question pagefile.sys appearing on all drives, not just OS drive

[Jake Maverick]

So, I have a multiboot system- linux, xp 64 and windows 7.

Only a recent thing....but somehow the pagefile.sys keeps getting copied to other drives.. I have half a dozen. Can't figure why or what is causing it, but Windows 7 seems to be the culprit. It's a very large 25gb file and i'm constantly fighting for disk space atm, so proving to be a real PITA. I can delete it no problem but then it re-appears again....it only need to be on the operating system drive?

Anybody had this problem before?

 

[RealBeast]

I've seen this occasionally. Usually the easiest fix, assuming the machine has sufficient memory for most of your uses, is to create a static small paging file on a drive that is always available to the OS. System control panel, advanced system settings, advanced tab, performance settings, advanced tab, under virtual memory click change and then for each drive set custom sized file that is same initial and max size, so say 4096, 4096. Then no paging file on all others.

And if you really need space have you also turned off hibernation and deleted the hibernation file?

 

[Jake Maverick]

I've seen this occasionally. Usually the easiest fix, assuming the machine has sufficient memory for most of your uses, is to create a static small paging file on a drive that is always available to the OS. System control panel, advanced system settings, advanced tab, performance settings, advanced tab, under virtual memory click change and then for each drive set custom sized file that is same initial and max size, so say 4096, 4096. Then no paging file on all others.

And if you really need space have you also turned off hibernation and deleted the hibernation file?

thanks! i shall try that....been so long on these things I have gotten rusty :-( i don't want to reduce the size of the file though...it seems to need the 25gb, and there is room on the os drive for it....hibernation always off on that machine! so hot here keeping that machine off for the moment, but i shall try later this evening when it's cooler.....

 

[USAFRet]

thanks! i shall try that....been so long on these things I have gotten rusty :-( i don't want to reduce the size of the file though...it seems to need the 25gb, and there is room on the os drive for it....hibernation always off on that machine! so hot here keeping that machine off for the moment, but i shall try later this evening when it's cooler.....

What is the size/make/model of your OS drive, and how much space is consumed?

 

[BFG-9000]

Given how Windows uses the first available drive first for paging (and thus starts with the least busy drive), there's no reason not to set a custom initial size of something like 1023MB on each drive. That way, if say Windows 7 balloons it to 25GB then next time you boot to any Windows it will be reset to 1GB. That 25GB of wasted space stays while you are booted to Linux however.

That said, my understanding is that early versions of Windows do not actually use more than 4095MB per file (you can set larger, it just won't be used!) so you would need to set multiple files (on different disks, partitions or subfolders) to actually use 25GB worth of swap. If you aren't using any programs that demand so much memory, then it is probably an artifact of some memory leak and just data that will never be used anyway getting shuffled off to swap.

25GB paged is simply massive considering most new computers today still come with only 8GB of RAM... so a brand new computer would not be noticeably faster than your >10yo vintage machine under such conditions.

 

[USAFRet]

25GB paged is simply massive considering most new computers today still come with only 8GB of RAM... so a brand new computer would not be noticeably faster than your >10yo vintage machine under such conditions.

Generally, it would set itself at 1.5x the amount of physical RAM.

So, a 16GB system....25GB is just about right.

The unanswered question is....how large is this drive, and how much is consumed?

25GB on a 500GB SSD, no real problem.
25GB on a 120GB SSD, problem.

 

[Jake Maverick]

yeah it's an intel 128gb ish ssd, split between 7, xp 64 and linux, although i rarely use linux as the graphics are a problem...hoping to upgrade that! 24gb ram...and i do use memory intensive programs as i need to rener files for various 3d printers, which is why it's probably so high...didn't get to mess withit last night...but hopefully tonight! also got this other problem....i think i need to replace motherboard but no funds, having to swap out the BIOS chip every 18 months or so as it keeps locking/ crashing up/ fails to boot....doingit so much now it needs swapping again, then it will be ok for a while again....so it must be my motherboard that needs replacing, right?

 

[USAFRet]

yeah it's an intel 128gb ish ssd, split between 7, xp 64 and linux, although i rarely use linux as the graphics are a problem...hoping to upgrade that! 24gb ram...and i do use memory intensive programs as i need to rener files for various 3d printers, which is why it's probably so high...didn't get to mess withit last night...but hopefully tonight! also got this other problem....i think i need to replace motherboard but no funds, having to swap out the BIOS chip every 18 months or so as it keeps locking/ crashing up/ fails to boot....doingit so much now it needs swapping again, then it will be ok for a while again....so it must be my motherboard that needs replacing, right?

24GB RAM....if the pagefile is left at System Managed, it WILL be far too large for that tiny SSD.

Reduce that down to Custom, maybe 2GB min/max.

But you also need to fix all the other issues.
Swap the BIOS chip every 18 months? Why?

And do something with that small OS drive. 3x OS on a 120GB drive...problems.

 

[Jake Maverick]

limited means here, have to work with what i have :-( business totally dead right now.....

The OS on the tiny ssd has never really been a problem, there is just enough space for all 3 to run comfortably.

Dying motherboard i think...swap out the BIOS chip, it's fine for a year or so then starts to slowly deteriorate again.....right now i'm back to having to switch it on and off again 20 times before it will boot then halway through an ep it will ockup again, right PITA but no funds to sort it out. With artefacts on screen as well last night, starting to suspect graphics card going as well, only 1gb radeon 5450 or something...

 

[USAFRet]

limited means here, have to work with what i have :-( business totally dead right now.....

The OS on the tiny ssd has never really been a problem, there is just enough space for all 3 to run comfortably.

Dying motherboard i think...swap out the BIOS chip, it's fine for a year or so then starts to slowly deteriorate again.....right now i'm back to having to switch it on and off again 20 times before it will boot then halway through an ep it will ockup again, right PITA but no funds to sort it out. With artefacts on screen as well last night, starting to suspect graphics card going as well, only 1gb radeon 5450 or something...

Change the size of the pagefile.
Don't let Windows automanage it.