Since update on 19 Jan 2019, I get page file error on boot

Sailindawg said:

I'm thinking that the old strategy of placing a page file on a separate disk may be over.

I agree. Same with using scratch disks, rearranging partitions so the most used is on the outside where it is faster and so on. The whole premise of all these solutions is based on physically moving disk arm(s) which is kinda antiquated. Obviously you want page file on your fastest storage so perhaps optane would make sense. IDK if that would help really though as I don't have one - just speculation.

Sailindawg said:

As I speak, Win 10 occupies 46 G of my OS hard drive. That's a lot of space to take up.

Yes it is. You should (after cleaning up obviously) try compression (xpress not NTFS). That might make it both smaller and faster - it does for me anyway.

I've tried to use compression on that OS drive, but it's not working either. I can select the option, but it does not do anything. I believe it to be because of Windows wants to see 25G free to be available for the OS. The drive is tapped. I need to clone to a larger drive, then reassess whee I'm at.

Thanks for the comments.

You must be doing something wrong. Post your command-line here. Windows 10 compact compression works fine.

eLPuSHeR said:

You must be doing something wrong.

Yeah, my OS drive is out if capacity & the OS is not happy. Everything runs for the moment, but updates will start to fail because of no drive space.

Solution, firstly put OS on a larger drive. Rule of thumb for SDD's was compression not necessary. That may very well be a myth as well from the early days of SSD'S.

I get the same error message after KB4480976 was installed today. It was the only update, so it may be the root cause. I had a relatively small page file on D drive (SSD) for years, but now Windows created a 8 GB page file on C drive (also SSD).

mmx said:

I get the same error message after KB4480976 was installed today. It was the only update, so it may be the root cause. I had a relatively small page file on D drive (SSD) for years, but now Windows created a 8 GB page file on C drive (also SSD).

The page file is loaded early in boot process - which is why for example you can't put your page file on an external USB because USB drivers haven't loaded yet (not that you would want to). If it can't find the defined one it creates a default on C: and gives that message. I get it native booting VMs as when running them as guests I get them to share a virtual disk for the page file that doesn't exist when native booting.

Perhaps something changed meaning your second SSD wasn't visible at that point during boot. I tried moving mine to a second partition on the same SSD but that worked and I don't have a second internal SSD to test with.

I guess you may well be right - there is nothing interesting in the KB4480976 release notes though unsurprisingly.

lx07 said:

The page file is loaded early in boot process - which is why for example you can't put your page file on an external USB because USB drivers haven't loaded yet (not that you would want to). If it can't find the defined one it creates a default on C: and gives that message. I get it native booting VMs as when running them as guests I get them to share a virtual disk for the page file that doesn't exist when native booting.

Perhaps something changed meaning your second SSD wasn't visible at that point during boot. I tried moving mine to a second partition on the same SSD but that worked and I don't have a second internal SSD to test with.

I guess you may well be right - there is nothing interesting in the KB4480976 release notes though unsurprisingly.

I did some tests and Windows seems to be happy with 1 GB page file as long as it is configured to C. If some other drive is used, I get the error and extra 8 GB page file on C. So, at least that matches your theory.

mmx, what capacity is your OS SSD?

How many partitions on your OS SSD?

Is the OS the only thing installed on that drive?