bad page file

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sanford Aranoff
  • Start date Start date
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Sanford Aranoff

New XP machine. Woke up in the morning. Bad page file. Had to unplug the
computer. Would not reboot. Shut off power from the external hard disk,
and then rebooted fine. Restored system to a few days ago. Tested F:,
the external hard disk. Bad sectors. Called Dell, and they authorized a
warranty return.

I decided to try to format. Everything was fine. Tested F:. Everything
is fine. How can this be? If the disk was bad, formatting would not make
it good!

I noticed after the format, F: contained a few files. Why are there
files present on a drive that was formatted? One file is "System Volume
Information". I am unable to read this file. Access Denied. It is a
hidden file. There is also a autorun.inf file. Do you think my problems
may have come from deleting these files? If so, why did the problem
arise in the morning, instead of immediately after deleting the files?

Is my hard disk good, or should I exchange it?
 
Sanford Aranoff said:
New XP machine. Woke up in the morning. Bad page file. Had to unplug the
computer. Would not reboot. Shut off power from the external hard disk,
and then rebooted fine. Restored system to a few days ago. Tested F:,
the external hard disk. Bad sectors. Called Dell, and they authorized a
warranty return.
Click to expand...

Bad Page file? What was the actual error message? Can you provide
the complete *verbatim* text?

I decided to try to format. Everything was fine. Tested F:. Everything
is fine. How can this be? If the disk was bad, formatting would not make
it good!
Click to expand...

Was your page file on drive F:? Windows XP does not support the use
of a page file on an external/removable drive.

I noticed after the format, F: contained a few files. Why are there
files present on a drive that was formatted? One file is "System Volume
Information". I am unable to read this file. Access Denied. It is a
hidden file. There is also a autorun.inf file. Do you think my problems
may have come from deleting these files? If so, why did the problem
arise in the morning, instead of immediately after deleting the files?
Click to expand...


System Volume Information is the folder where Windows XP stores the
System Restore data for that drive. If System Restore is enabled for
a specific drive/partition then that drive will have a System Volume
Information folder placed on it automatically. Newly formatted
drives/partitions will have the folder created immediately after the
format is complete.

You can turn off System Restore on specific drives/partitions if you
want to, provided you are aware of the risks inherent in doing so.
See MVP Bert Kinney's System Restore pages at
http://home.earthlink.net/~mvp_bert/index.html for more detailed
information.
Is my hard disk good, or should I exchange it?
Click to expand...

I would determine the name of the actual manufacturer of the hard
drive (Recent new Dell systems that I have seen have used Maxtor
drives) and then download the free diagnostic utility from the
manufacturer's web site and test the disk thoroughly. If it passes
the manufacturer's test then it is probably okay.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm
 
I guess the problem is that I deleted f:\System Volume Information.
It is a Maxtor disk, and their software says the disk is now okay.
What is strange is the error messages I received!
 
This comment is not good enough. We need to know just what we can do to screw up
the computer.
No one told me about this file on my external hard disk.
 
Hi,

If you delete the System Volume Information folder on any drive it
will be recreated.
You will want to make sure System Restore is not monitoring the
removable drive. This can lead to restore point corruption.
 
System volume information contains your system restore points. It has
restricted access to keep numb-nuts from getting in there and deleting stuff
they shouldn't.
 
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