Patrick
The nature of your problem is obvious from the information you have
provided. Your pagefile settings are "System Managed" This is what most
users recommend in these newsgroups, and this will result is a
fragmented pagefile. This in turn causes other files to be fragmented,
whenever you make changes to the system. Given you only have 29% free
space it is difficult to totally remedy. You need something like 60%
free space to achieve but not to retain a completely contiguous
pagefile. The reason is that the system places the pagefile in the
middle of disk and if there are files already occupying the disk space
the pagefile cannot be placed in this location so the pagefile is put as
near as possible to that position.
Another complication is that when you try to consolidate the pagefile
you have to restart the computer. This action starts the fragmentation
process on a newly defragmented partition, as on shutting down the
changed system settings are written to disk inevitably creating
fragmented free disk space. On rebooting the creation of a new pagefile
is written to the fragmented free space and the pagefile is fragmented.
If your free space is 60% or more this factor does not come into play
because the fragmented free space is in the first 40% of the partition
leaving the new pagefile to be written in the next 20% free space which
will be contiguous . If the pagefile is a custom setting with the
minimum and maximum the same size the pagefile will remain contiguous
until the pagefile setting is changed. If you achieve a contiguous or
near contiguous pagefile it is best not to change pagefile settings.
Something else research has thrown up about your
AOL\TopSpeed\2.0\cache.db
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=65404
The comments in the link and elsewhere suggest that if you are using
broadband you do not need this.
Having explained the reason for your multi fragmented pagefile let's see
if we can get it to consolidate into two or three fragments.
My first suggestion is that you download and install cCleaner
(freeware). I will explain about using it later.
http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp
http://www.ccleaner.com/
You should now change your pagefile settings. Select Start, Control
Panel, System, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory,
Change and place the cursor on C drive in the next window. Check the box
before "No pagefile" and click on Set, OK and exit.
Next maximise your free space by taking the following measures. Turn off
the monitoring by System Restore on all drives and partitions. You
should only be monitoring your C partition but for now you need to win
free disk space. Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and
select System Restore. Check the box before "Turn off System Restore on
all drives. Now run cCleaner.
With any cleaner you need to proceed with caution. When using cCleaner
think twice before checking Autocomplete Form History under Internet
Explorer. You do get a warning but this one has irritating consequences.
You may need to restore your system's recollection of passwords after
use so keep a record off computer so that they can easily be re-entered.
Leave the Scan for Issues option alone.
Now run Disk Defragmenter and when this has completed restart your
computer. Rebooting enables the pagefile change to take effect so at
this point you will have maximised your free disk space. Run Disk
Defragmenter again. You should now change your pagefile settings again.
Select Start, Control Panel, System, Advanced, Performance Settings,
Advanced, Virtual Memory, Change and place the cursor on C drive /
partition. Select Custom Size and set a Minumum and a Maximum of 1,000
mb. When you have made your selection click on Set, OK and exit. You
will need to restart your computer for the new settings to take effect.
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm
You will now have got the pagefile to the best you can achieve. If you
do not subsequently change your pagefile settings the number of
fragments, if any, should not increase. The pagefile will most likely
display as a limited number of contiguous green unmoveable areas in the
graphical display in Disk Defragmenter. It may display as a solid green
unmoveable area, which is the ideal and a completely contiguous
pagefile.
One final task is to put your System Restore arrangements back in place.
The default allocation to System Restore is 12% on your C partition,
which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right click your My
Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore. Place the cursor
on your C drive select Settings but this time find the slider and drag
it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get to the
Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit. Now turn System Restore
back on for just your C partition. Right click your My Computer icon on
the Desktop and select System Restore. Uncheck the box before "Turn off
System Restore on all drives. You now need to stop the monitoring of all
drives / partitions except C. The instructions to do this are in the
next link:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/drivedisable.html
The method described above is complicated and convoluted but it only
needs to be done once. In future providing you maintain 15% free disk
space defragmenting will be a bit quicker and you should get better
results when you run Disk Defragmenter.
For the future cCleaner does not remove restore points. You need to use
Disk CleanUp for this. Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, Disk CleanUp, More Options, System Restore and remove all but the
latest System Restore point before running Disk Defragmenter.
--
Hope this helps.
Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
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and a system