Windows 10: Paging file on 2nd HD doesn't work anymore after Windows update in Dec

Hello, Happy new year.

I have a couple PC's in my house running Windows 10 64bit. All these PC's run Windows from a SSD and have a 2nd HD installed. To save space on the SSD's I put the paging file for the virtual ram on the 2nd HD.

So now, sometime in December after a big Windows 10 update, 2 PC's showing issues with the paging file.

After a restart or sleeping I'm getting an error msg on these PC's:

Windows created a temporary paging file on your computer because of a problem that occurred with your paging file configuration when you started your computer. The total paging file size for all disk drives may be somewhat larger than the size you specified.

Ok, in my case Windows automatically created them like 10 times smaller. To solve the problem temporary, I had to disable the paging file on the 2nd drive, and activate it on my SSD. When I'm trying to re-configure it to my 2nd drive it seems to work until a restart, and Windows is doing his thing and the error message appears again. How rude!

First I thought the second drive might dying (since I have everything moved on there like Desktop, Documents, Pictures, etc.) when the error appears, the whole desktop is empty, it seems like it is not recognizing the 2nd HD anymore. But after Windows does his rude thing, the desktop comes back. I scanned the 2nd drive for errors but none were found. But anyways, since the same issue appears on two PC's, I doubt that the problem is the 2nd drive. I'm pretty sure the update messed something up.

I googled the issue first before coming here, and it seems I am the only one with this problem.

Any help would be much appreciated!

:)

 

Frequent sites list on internet explorer 11 disappears often

Sorry, I missed your previous post of Dec 11, but thanks for the update.

Don

 

after Win 10 1709 update 2nd Dec Black Screen on one, No Wifi Printing on another just to start

Yes desktop screen is perfect, so unsure what problem was

was going go in blind and sign in and see if it came up as had usually just been turning on and getting nothing, so today turned on and let sit for a few hours then tried 1st time when made pin mistake that was still with blank screen straight after rebooted
and screen was active, signed in and everything seems ok even with all the rebooting via power button

 

Just an observation - what is the purpose of running an SSD instead of a HDD? Isn't it to speed up performance of the computer? So why would you want to bottleneck the whole speed increase of using an SSD by putting the paging file onto the slowest drive you have installed?

I see these posts all the time and they leave me scratching my head. "I installed an SSD, but I only want to use it to boot Windows from so I am trying to move everything that I can to a second HDD like applications and the paging file." OK. So you save yourself maybe 20 seconds of booting and Windows loading time and then forcing the system to bottleneck it's performance by moving the very file that will affect performance the most to the slowest drive on the system.

The SSD is the perfect place for the paging file because file fragmentation has no affect on an SSD whatsoever.

 

Because the SSD is quite small. The second HDD's were the boot drives in their earlier live so I thought this was the smartest solution after researching the internet. Why would I want to waste like 16GB for a paging file on that small SSD? Also doesn't run the Windows system faster on a SSD? I wasn't aware that a SSD is just in advantage for booting. Also, I want to keep using what I once bought, and not having to re-buy everything every couple years. Trying to make the best out with what I have, or can afford. Thanks

 

Ok, I just learned that today and will think about it in the future. I did not know that and thought it is healthier for the SSD to move the paging file somewhere else. I thought I read that years ago... Live and learn. Thanks. But still, I'm wondering why my configuration just stopped working.

 

What happens when you set Windows to let it manage the pagefile (and with an SSD, that is most optimized way to do it):





You mention the SSD is quite small so why use 16gb of it for a paging file. Well, the answer is because the paging file is the most important file to perform as fast as possible in order to increase the performance of Windows in general. So the real question is, if you have 16 GB of free space available on the SSD, then why would you NOT want it to be used for the paging file?

My guess is that something happened to damage the paging file on the HDD and once you let Windows manage it (and Windows will put it on the SSD only because that is the best place for it), you can look for the hidden and system .sys files on the root folder of the HDD and delete them.

Mine are on the SSD, so you would want to look for them on D: drive (or whatever drive letter the HDD is on your system) but here is an example:
Code: C:\WINDOWS\system32>cd .. C:\Windows>cd .. C:\>dir /aha Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 1ABD-1D37 Directory of C:\ 10/29/2015 11:18 PM 400,228 bootmgr 10/29/2015 11:18 PM 1 BOOTNXT 01/06/2017 02:43 PM 6,635,855,872 hiberfil.sys 01/03/2017 02:54 PM 2,550,136,832 pagefile.sys 01/03/2017 02:54 PM 16,777,216 swapfile.sys 5 File(s) 9,203,170,149 bytes 0 Dir(s) 417,831,768,064 bytes free[/quote] Without an SSD it was optimal to set a fixed size for the pagefile to avoid it becoming fragmented. With an SSD that is no longer true or applicable.

 

Thank you. It seems to be an easy fix overall then for my problem. The 16GB (16200mb) I chose because there are 16GB RAM installed. Researching the internet brought me to that result... Yes, when I set it to "Automatically manage" it looks similar to your screenshot. But aren't only around 2500mb for the paging file to small with my 16GB physical RAM?

Thanks, I can spot the paging file on D: also under folder options - view - hide protected operating system files - off. I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

I would go ahead and try to delete the pagefile on D: drive. A pagefile the same size as RAM is only required if there is a system crash and a crash dump file to be created associated with it. Do you intend to use an entire dump of the physical RAM for troubleshooting in the event of a BSOD crash?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2860880

The more RAM you have, the smaller the pagefile needs to be for normal operations.

 

I'm sure I can delete the page file on D: just fine after setting it to Automatic. I just can't try it at the moment, I'm at work. And I think it's a dead file anyways since I had no other choice than moving the paging file to the C: on the SSD already.

And no, I don't intent at all to use it for an case of a BSOD crash. I just set it like that because I thought it is the correct way to configure the virtual ram... I think I should be good to go by just setting it to automatically managed, as you recommend it. You seem to know what you're talking about *Wink Have a good weekend.

 

And back in the days of Windows 95, I used to set a fixed file size for the pagefile, and use a defragging program where I could set it to move the pagefile to the front of the partition....been there and done all that. You'll find that with an SSD and 16GB of RAM - setting the pagefile to let Windows managing it automatically will work just fine - and especially be a performance improvement over having the pagefile set to use the slow HDD exclusively.

 

I see, yes I played with it too back in the day to Win95 times. Did never really thought about it, that it could have that much changed in the SSD area. Thanks for expanding my horizon. Cheers

 

SSD performance is affected by the amount of free space.
Exploring the Relationship Between Spare Area and Performance Consistency in Modern SSDs - Print View

The article is from 2012.
More recent SSD models may behave differently.