Page file indicated for most of the disk - why? How to rid?

[muymalestado]

DF 2.18.945 : Win7 x 64 Home

 

Recent enlargement of files brought HDD free space right down.  Deletion now restores 40% of disk to freespace.  DF displays about the whole freed-up 40% colour-keyed as Page File.  Each segment has a few files listed within. 

 

Defragging freespace runs through all these page file segments but leaves the files in them and all still marked as page file.

 

Can I use SysInternals Pagedfrg.exe to 'un-page' the page file segmants?

 

Would Windows - Computer - Advance Windows Settings - Performance - changing to a very small Page File unmark these numerous page file ?  Or, would that just delete all the files contained within ?

 

Hope this makes sense!

 

Thank you.

 

Phil

[kroozer]

I suppose you've already tried fixing by rebooting computer.

If you have a huge pagingfile indicated then I suppose it's true, though weird. I haven't used Sysinternals to unpage. Worth a try.
Contents of pagingfile was swapped out from RAM, so it's not essential to have lotsa room allocated for it. I have 6GB RAM on this Win7 pc, and set pagingfile limits to 32MB initial, 512MB max.

fyi\ to remove or change size of pagingfile I would ►

Windows key + Pause-break key\ Advanced system settings\ Performance\ Settings\ Advanced\ Virtual memory\ Change\ ☉ No paging file\ Set\ OK.

Reboot computer.

Return to Advanced system settings and set pagingfile to desired size.

Reboot computer.
 

[Andavari]

I haven't used Sysinternals to unpage. Worth a try.

 

It just defragments it, and the bigger the pagefile the longer it takes.

 

I have it set to always defrag when booting.

[muymalestado]

Thank you kroozer and Andavari !  What I want to be sure of is that when reducing the pagefile segments to a minimum it does not delete all the files contained therein.  I can see in DF that many of these are useful files.

 

Will these files be safely moved ?

 

Thanks.

[mta]

What I want to be sure of is that when reducing the pagefile segments to a minimum it does not delete all the files contained therein.  I can see in DF that many of these are useful files.

 

Are we all on the same page here?

 

The Windows pagefile file is refreshed at every boot and contains things that get swapped out of memory, so while this 'swapped out' data may contain personal details, the originals are still where you left them.

 

What you do to the pagefile in no way effects your own personal docs, pics, music etc.

[kroozer]

@ muymalestado

PagingFile is slow memory, which is why I like to keep it small, and pertinent for only the current session.
So I have it cleared at shutdown by installing Fixit 50463.

Dumping all those slow-access files hurts nothing, and may speed up your system by forcing rewrites to the faster RAM.

[muymalestado]

Same page here?  Hmmm.  I hope so, but I am the neophyte.  What I see in DF, after analysing, is loads of blocks scattered all over the disk and coloured brown / buff as indicates Page File in the Drive Map.  As PNG file attached.

 

Each Page File block has a file list, most of which seem like bona fide files.

 

My query, which is the last part of my initial post, is whether reducing the Page File using the technique(s) outlined will delete all these files shown in the file lists. 

 

I suppose a subsidiary query is if these blocks are not Page File blocks why does DF colour them as though they are.  But that is secondary to whether I am OK to reduce the Windows Page File.

 

Thanks

Phil

[Derek891]

Hello Phil - After looking at the screenshot you've provided, all I can say is "OMG!!!      ". It looks like the system paging file is occupying 80% to 90% of your Windows C:\ partition and is incredibly fragmented as well. What I would do is this:

 

1.) Go to the settings for virtual memory and turn system paging off (select "No paging file"), ignore the silly warning messages, and reboot the machine.

2.) Right click and open an elevated Command Prompt (run as Administrator). Then enter " powercfg /hibernate off ". At this point pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys are both removed from the C:\ partition and this gives you some room to work with.

3.) Open Defraggler and run the Analysis, and confirm that all the beige blocks are gone. Then do a full defragmentation of the drive and get all of your system and data files moved to the beginning of the drive. You might have to do this 2 or 3 times in order to get everything unscrambled and organized properly. 

4.) Go back to the virtual memory settings and turn system paging back on (No need to reboot when doing this).

5.) Then open an elevated Command Prompt and enter " powercfg /hibernate on " to restore the hibernation file.

Your system will thank you for it.   

[muymalestado]

Hello Phil - After looking at the screenshot you've provided, all I can say is "OMG!!!      ". It looks like the system paging file is occupying 80% to 90% of your Windows C:\ partition and is incredibly fragmented as well. What I would do is this:

<snip>

Your system will thank you for it.   

And I will thank you !

 

After a thorough backup and a series of DF'ing I shall report the results ......

 

Phil

[Derek891]

Hello Phil - There is one more thing I completely forgot to mention when I posted yesterday: your system restore points. How much of the Windows C:\ disk partition did you allocate for saving them? And when was the last time you cleaned out the older ones? I've found that they tend to start out fairly small (200-300MB), grow to gigabyte size, and eventually occupying 10's of gigabytes if you let them go unchecked. Windows will only delete the older ones to make way for newer ones when it has reached the upper limit of the space you have allocated.

 

Before you delete any at all, I would suggest that you determine you don't actually need them. Do this by opening an elevated Command Prompt (right click and select "Run as Administrator"), and enter the command " sfc /scannow ". This will scan all of your Windows system files and verify that none are missing and that none are corrupted. This process will take 20-30 minutes, so take a break and let it run to completion. If you see the message "Windows did not find any integrity violations", then you should consider deleting all of your system restore points except the most recent one. If you have Ccleaner installed along with Defraggler, this is easy to do. Open Ccleaner, select "Tools", then select "System Restore". Ccleaner will let you delete all except the most recent one. 

 

One more thing: Open Defraggler and go to "Settings", then "Options", then click the "Advanced" tab. Make sure you have the following items checked before using Defraggler:

 

1.) At the very bottom of the list, make sure "Stop VSS when defragmenting NTFS volume" is checked.

 

2.) Go up one notch and make sure "Use custom fragmentation settings" is checked, then click the "Define" tab, and make sure "Exclude restore point file" and "Exclude hibernation file" are both checked as well.     

[muymalestado]

Whew!  @Derek891 thanks, got that - and now have a written procedure sheet ........

[muymalestado]

Did the business and it looks good.  I don't know how to force files to be defragged up to the front.  After three defrags it looks like this - More deleting (moving files off to EHD) will free up space.

 

Thanks to Derek891 -  krooser - Andavari for the help.

 

Current disk state as attached.

 

Phil

[trium]

@ muymalestado

 

PagingFile is slow memory, which is why I like to keep it small, and pertinent for only the current session.

So I have it cleared at shutdown by installing Fixit 50463.

 

Dumping all those slow-access files hurts nothing, and may speed up your system by forcing rewrites to the faster RAM.

 

i dont use pagefile-clearing at shutdown... where is the plus of this action? the poor hd...

[Derek891]

Hello Phil - That looks better now than the in previous screenshot, but it's still far from ideal. I noticed that the used space on your disk increased from 57% to 80% and you free space dropped from 43% down to just 20%. Did you check off the items I mentioned in my last post before starting your last round of defragmenting? Also, did you try running " sfc /scannow " and then deleting all of your system restore points as I described in my previous post? I have a feeling either or both of that these items might account for the substantial increase in disk usage.

[muymalestado]

Hello Phil - That looks better now than the in previous screenshot, but it's still far from ideal. I noticed that the used space on your disk increased from 57% to 80% and you free space dropped from 43% down to just 20%. Did you check off the items I mentioned in my last post before starting your last round of defragmenting? Also, did you try running " sfc /scannow " and then deleting all of your system restore points as I described in my previous post? I have a feeling either or both of that these items might account for the substantial increase in disk usage.

Thank you Derek891 - Yes to all - but I may not have got these right.

 

sfc /scannow was run as Admin.  The log file was just over 2MB and I did not see the text "corrupted"  or "integrity" or "violat".  I don't think I know how to read the CBS log file.

 

The checked boxes in DF, Settings, Options, Advanced were :

Minimize to tray

Save all settings to INI file

Cache Analysis Data of Multiple Drives

Use custom fragmentation:  both the Exclude restore point and Exclude Hibernation were checked

Stop VSS

 

Ccleaner showed only the very last restore point and would not allow deletion.

 

The pagefile was set to none; the hibernation file was set to none and reboot was done.

 

Clearly Pagefile is back; Hiberbate file should also be back there somewhere.

 

Regards

Phil

 

DF, Action, Advanced, Defrag freespace was done after the first big, slow Defrag.

[trium]

what is "freespace defrag..."?

[trium]

muymalestado

 

according to your picture you have determined 20% of fragmentation or so...

[trium]

4.) Go back to the virtual memory settings and turn system paging back on (No need to reboot when doing this).

 

i mean, you need on every case a reboot after set the new pagefile...

 

setting the hiberfil.sys works without restart

[Derek891]

Thank you Derek891 - Yes to all - but I may not have got these right.

 

sfc /scannow was run as Admin.  The log file was just over 2MB and I did not see the text "corrupted"  or "integrity" or "violat".  I don't think I know how to read the CBS log file.

 

 

Hello Phil - I would like you to be clear on this. There are three different messages generated when " sfc /scannow " completes the operation. Exactly which one did you get? 

.

1.) "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." - No missing/corrupt files were found and no CBS.log was generated.

 

2.) "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log." - Problems were found and repaired. A CBS.log was generated.

 

3.) "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log." - Problems were found that could not be repaired. A CBS.log file was generated. 

[muymalestado]

Hello Phil - I would like you to be clear on this. There are three different messages generated when " sfc /scannow " completes the operation. Exactly which one did you get? 

.

1.) "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." - No missing/corrupt files were found and no CBS.log was generated.

 

2.) "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log." - Problems were found and repaired. A CBS.log was generated.

 

3.) "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log." - Problems were found that could not be repaired. A CBS.log file was generated. 

 

Thanks Derek891 - As expected I got message 3. or similar and an 812kb text file with 4,000 lines in it.  It is attached.

 

I suppose this sounds like a sort of death knell to the disk.  DF has run a few times now and each time reports less and less free space.

 

Avast and Malwarebytes scans have been run - finding nothing - and both were turned off, as was the wifi, during the last two DF runs.

 

Freespace is down to 10% of the disk.

 

Thanks

Phil

2015-02-23-CBS.log.txt

[trium]

have you manual delete the pagefile.sys? sometimes it still on harddisk...

delete unnecessary system restore points?

perhaps helps the windows-defragmentation?

[trium]

if in this folder a single-file with 800 MB or so, delete it

 

C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports

[trium]

have you include any kind of "temp" folder to clean with ccleaner? -with option "files and subfolders"

 

c:\user\default\appdata\local\temp

c:\user\yournick\appdata\local\temp

c:\user\allusers\temp

+ perhaps more of this kind...

 

c:\program files (x86)\temp

c:\programmdata\temp

c:\windows\temp

[trium]

perhaps deactivate this options...

[trium]

and dont use drive wiper -but that's just my personal opinion