Well, given your situation, I have some thoughts on what might be causing
the problem, but I'm not claiming to be an expert on paging file or
Symantec's Systemworks (there's good reason for this one!).
- I really don't like running Systemworks all the time, it wants to "own"
your system and can cause problems. There are good tools in Systemworks that
can help you if you need to run them, but my recommendation is to shut them
down the rest of the time (NAV being an exception). A very strong
possibility that this may be contributing to your problem. [I walked in on a
client who was on hold for a Microsoft Tech Supt person to deal with an
issue that he had an "open ticket" on. So the three of us ended up dealing
with his problem and the Microsoft Tech Supt person explained to my client
that it would be very wise to "turn off" most of the features of Systemworks
due to the potential for causing problems! My client is a "utility junkie"
so he refused the sage advice of both of us. <g>]
- Also a strong possibility that your HDD is deeply fragmented and that the
paging file is likewise fragmented. This could cause massive performance
delays. I've seen this on a couple of my own systems and Defrag'g resolved
it.
Now my reservations about solutions.
- You didn't tell us how much empty disk space is on this HDD. Defrag needs
lots of free space (15-20%) to do its job.
- Under the conditions you relate, defrag'g could take "forever" or at least
feel that way. I am not certain that it will work in Safe Mode, but I'd
certainly recommend trying it if you have at least 15-20% of your HDD
unused.
- The defrag applet that comes with WinXP will not defrag the paging file,
only the full-blown product (Diskeeper by Executive Software) will do that,
or another 3rd party defrag'r.
A number of other MVPs have used Raxco's (
www.raxco.com) product
(PerfectDisk, a defrag'r) and have said good things about it. I just
received a copy this week, but haven't had time to try it out yet.
If Safe Mode boots fast and doesn't indicate the problem you reported, I'd
take a look in MSConfig (run from Start, Run) and disable a lot of
Systemworks and other utilities and see what it takes to solve your problem.
Since there is no real DOS in WinXP and if you have an NTFS HDD you can't
see it if you boot with a Win98 diskette, deleting the paging file so that
it recreates itself at next boot is very difficult. [If you are running
FAT32, you can boot with a Win98 diskette and unhide the paging file, delete
it and reboot normally, hoping for the best (that it finds enough contiguous
space to create a new paging file that isn't fragmented).] If you are setup
as NTFS, you could try booting into Safe Mode, delete the paging file by
setting it to "no paging file", reboot again into Safe Mode and reset it to
create a system managed paging file and try to reboot normally. If there is
enough contiguous space, this might work.
Hopefully one of these ideas might bear fruit and solve your problem.
