Hi, I need help from someone who knows WinXP (SP2) and has an understanding of how the Pagefile is created and administered by the System.

I have just re-built my PC with Windows XP Pro (After changing the System disk configuration), and installed SP2 and all the available updates. I then loaded Office 2003, and Norton 2004, ZA Pro, Nero, Winzip 9 (eval), WinRAR, Acrobat R, Realone, Quicktime, Winamp, VB6SP5 and all was well (all correctly licensed except for winzip).

I then installed Visual Studio.net (also correctly licensed), on the next re-boot I got an error message telling me that I didn't have a Pagefile, and that Windows had (kindly) created a temporary one for me.

I duly when to set it manually, I have 512MB, so I set Start at 512MB max at 1024MB and was prompted fro a re-boot. On re-boot I get the same error message.

I have tried setting no Pagefile and re-booting then setting one, and setting it to System Managed to no avail.

I have tried editing the registry keys:
HKEY_Local_Machine\System\currentcontrolset\control\session manager\Memory Managment\pagefiles

and setting the value to: C:\pagefile.sys 766 1024

I have tried deleting the key (and changing the value from 1 to 0):
HKEY_Local_Machine\System\currentcontrolset\control\session manager\Memory Management\TempPagefile

nothing works I still get the same error at start-up.

I have read some other "helps" on the internet and several site suggest setting no Pagefile then rebooting and deleting the pagefile.sys then setting a page file and rebooting, this did not work, principally because there is no Pagefile.sys to delete!!.

Other sites suggest booting into safe mode and then deleting the pagefile.sys, and re-booting. XP should then re-create a Pagefile using the registry key mentioned above. In my case it doesn't work (presumably since there was no Pagefile.sys to be deleted).

I need help, I do not want to re-build this system again.

System:
Asus A7V600-x
ATI Radeon 9700
Duron 1800\266
512MB\333\2700
Mylex EX2000 RAID
2x Seagate 73GB SCSI U160 HDD running in RAID 0 (Attached to separate Channels on the Mylex
Adaptec 19160 SCSI Card
1x Seagate 73GB SCSI U160 HDD (attached to 19160)
Adaptec 29160 SCSI Card
Seagate Viper 200 Ultrium Tape Drive (attached to 29160)
Liton SOHC-5232K DVD\CDRW
2x FDD

Not to be the angel of doom, but it looks like your going to be reformatting. I have run into similar problems, mostly trying to set the page file to zero.

On a not too similar note, the reason I had problems was because the pagefile somehow got courpted and on the next reboot Norton went crazy and would not load up.

pagefile.sys is a hidden system file, you'll need to unhide it.

With 512MB of RAM, you might be just able to get away with having no pagefile, so I'm not sure why Windows creates a temporary one, unless it is indeed corrupted.

What I would suggest is that you remove the pagefile settings, restart the computer and boot into safe mode (Press F1 after BIOS POST screen and select Safe Mode, need admin account). From there, remove the pagefile.sys, which if on C: usually resides in the Windows directory or quite possibly C:\ but make sure you unhide hidden files and unhide system files.

In safe mode manually delete the file, then setup a new pagefile, I suggest anything from 384-896, 512MB of RAM is quite a bit, and it's faster to have programs loaded in memory rather than storing on Hard Drive. The larger you can get your RAM too the better and the lesser you can set your pagefile size, on my system with 2GB of RAM I would use no pagefile, though programs complain about not having a pagefile I set a minimum 2MB, it's usually because the program is looking for the pagefile and not really verifying whether there's enough RAM to handle it.


Cheers,


MC

hI,

Tansqrx, I think you may be right.

MC, I have already been through the motions, and I can't find a Pagefile.sys anywhere on the system. I have tried un-hidding Files, and seraching with the include hidden files and folders flag set. this is my real consern, I can't get Half Life 2 to paly since this occured. I would have liked to get the system going, but It looks more and more like a re-build.

Nothing seems to force the OS to create that pagefile.

Regards Cass