Page File Test

Jan. 07, 2004

A learned reader wrote in with the following:

"Your page file configuration concerns me. By placing the entire page file on a different disk you run the risk of losing access to your OS if the drive fails. I always keep a 2-10MB page file on the system partition to ensure I have access to the OS if the second drive fails. What I am unsure of is how XP responds to not having a page file if the second drive fails.
NT and 2K will boot but will not allow you to log on. I would assume that XP would react the same."

 

For a variety of reasons, I had always assumed XP would handle this fine. But being the brave and adventurous soul I am , I wanted to test this theory...

So, I made a Ghost image of my OS and then shut down. I unplugged the second drive, leaving XP without it's page file. Then I rebooted. Everything went fine. Basically XP, without a single hitch, saw there was no page file and decided to use the free space on C: . I opened up Photoshop 6 and took this screenie: