How do I get XP to recognize all of my flash drive page file?

With my previous hard drive I put my page file (swap file) on a flash drive and it definitely made an improvement in performance. My computer shop installed the current hard drive. A few days ago I got messages about low virtual memory. I checked and found they had set it to no page file.

I consulted some articles and then put a 3742 MB page file on my Lexar flash drive, B, on Saturday night. I also kept a 350 MB page file on the C drive, apparently a mistake. Today I started experiencing all sorts of weird problems : error messages from applications and applications disappearing without cause. I checked and saw that XP was only recognizing 350 MB as "Total paging file size for all drives."

I rebooted and changed the C drive setting to "No paging file." The weird problems have not continued. But XP is not recognizing 3742 MB of paging file. It is only showing 2046 MB as "Total paging file size for all drives." How do I change that?

Also one of my sources leads me to believe I can have a full size page file on the C drive as well as my flash drive B. Any reason not to do that?


Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition 32-bit SP3
CPU
Intel Pentium 4
Northwood 0.13um Technology
RAM
2.00GB DDR @ 166MHz (2.5-3-3-7)
Motherboard
Dell Computer Corp. 0G1548 (Microprocessor)
Graphics
Default Monitor (1280x1024@60Hz)
Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (Dell)
Storage
74GB Seagate ST380011A (ATA) 36 °C
119GB PNY USB 2.0 FD USB Device (USB)
3GB Lexar USB Flash Drive USB Device (USB)
Optical Drives
SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252S
Audio
Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device

 

Here's the screenshot.

 

What is the capacity of that flash drive?

Also, it may not need more than these 2GB at the moment; I guess it will allocate more when it needs more.

 

As you can see in the screenshot the capacity is 3752 MB.

I have it on Custom-set allocation.

I have checked the registry, and it does say "B:\pagefile.sys 3742 3742" (see screenshot here). Does that mean that XP really is accepting my configuration of a page file for the flash drive and that the only problem is that the Virtual Memory window under Properties (see earlier screenshot) is misreporting what is allocated?

Any reason not to go ahead and make another page file on my hard drive C? My system is hungry for memory.

 

What I don't comprehend is why you need a pagefile.sys on your flash drive. Do you use the flash drive as a System/Boot drive? Pagefile.sys is where the information is stored for resuming from Standby in XP so when you bring it out, everything is as it was when you put the computer into Standby.

Like you, I set a custom allocation. I set a minimum of 1.5 times the amount of RAM I have and a maximum of 2 times the amount. But, my pagefile.sys is only on my "C" drive.

System Volume Information used for Restore Points is controlled by the OS but the amount (which defaults to 12% of the hard drive's capacity) can be adjusted on the "C" drive and actually turned off on external/secondary drives.