XP pagefile problem - need help

[Nolonemo]

Background: I have 2 physical drives in my desktop. Drive 1 is partitioned into separate partitions for OS (C:), Apps (F:), Games (G:), Misc (I:), and Data (J:). Drive 2 is partioned into separate partitions for Music (K:), Backup (Z:). The drive letters are assigned so there will be consistent drive lettering with other computers on the home network.

The games partition was getting filled up, so using Partition Magic 8, I reallocated space on drive 1 to move some free space from the apps partion to the games partition.

Only problem was in the process the drive lettering got changed to the default letter assignment. No problem, sez I, and I go into XP's Disk Manager consol and start reassinging letters. However, G: is assigned by default to the Backup partition, so before I can reassing G: back to Games, I have to change Backup to Z:.

But, XP won't let me change the drive letter assigned to G:, I get a popup saying that I can't change the letter because the page file is on that drive.

WTF, I think, how did the page file get onto the second drive? Anyway, I go into My Computer Properties, etc, Performance, and change the pagefile location to C: But XP won't take the change. After a reboot, when I try to change the drive letter on Backup, I get the same message.

So I fire up Partition Magic and format Backup as a linux partition, thinking that XP won't see it, and will recreate the page file on one of the other drives.

Sure enough when I reboot, I get a popup that tells me that I don't have a pagefile or that it's too small (can't remeber which) and that Windows is creating a temporary pagefile. Pretty much what I expected. Except after I reboot again, I get the same popup, so it seems that XP has not just recreated the pagefile as I expected.

Problem:

So I go back into pagefile settings and see that the pagefile size is 256MB. So I check the radio button to let Windows manage the pagefile automatically, click OK, and reboot. No change, same as before.

So, I check the radio button to let me specify the size of the pagefile, enter the values, and specify C: for the location. Click OK and reboot. No change, same as before.

Anyone have any idea what's going on and/or how to get XP to take the pagefile settings I specify?

Thanks.

[d lehmann]

This is what I do. It should work for you.
Boot into safe mode.
Go into control panel etc. and set the page file to "no page file"
Reboot into safe mode and find the pagefile.sys and delete it.
Just for fun, run defrag in safe mode. You should not see any green (unmoveable areas) if you have the pagefile disabled and also hibernation disabled.
This is what I do every once in a while to do a little deeper defrag and to consolidate the unmoveable files.
After defrag go back into control panel etc and set the page file to your size and location preference. Also enable hibernation if you prefer. I don't. Reboot normally. Then go into defrag and check the green area to make sure there is just one.
Personally, I set the file on my C (for just the os and progs), to a static size of 4 gigs. I do this because a couple of progs wouldn't install because they wanted a 3 gig page file and I have large drives.
Now before I get slammed with a million theories on pagefiles, this works for me and I have tried no pagefiles, variable ones and my current way, and frankly in real world performance, I can't tell the difference.
I'm sure the developers at Microsoft have a best handle on it and their suggestions should probably be followed.

[Nolonemo]

My solution:
I found a web article that said there was a bug in win2k that if you got into the settings by right clicking my computers to bring up properties (as I had been doing) instead of going in through control panel -> system, the changes wouldn't take. When I went in through control panel, the changes held. You think MS would have managed to fix this in XP, it's not like it was a real obscure bug!

[Marc_G]

Thanks for posting your fix. This is valuable info.