muymalestado

Thanks - Previously I did the NO PAGEFILE thing, re-booted, there was none. Then reset it to System Managed, which today is 6582MB. Hiberfil was set off then a defrag and then set on.

OK - Indexing is on, but who is to say one does not need it? Is it just a matter of waiting time if indexing is off?

Thanks - There were five files in the Watchdog folder in there. The largest file was 675mb. Did not delete though some files were years old.

Hoping this would move the thing forward a bit; it seems a search through the CBS.log for "cannot repair" should identify specific files which sfc /scannow cannot fix - that may be wrong. Four files in the 13,411 rows of the CBS.log were identified: fdeploy.dll fde.dll gpedit.dll gptext.dll So now where to find a same-version copy to replace my copies of these files? My wife has a same-version laptop but will these files be OK? After 2 years of use and updates? Current state as attached image. Is there any way forward? Thanks Phil

Thanks Derek891 - As expected I got message 3. or similar and an 812kb text file with 4,000 lines in it. It is attached. I suppose this sounds like a sort of death knell to the disk. DF has run a few times now and each time reports less and less free space. Avast and Malwarebytes scans have been run - finding nothing - and both were turned off, as was the wifi, during the last two DF runs. Freespace is down to 10% of the disk. Thanks Phil 2015-02-23-CBS.log.txt

Thank you Derek891 - Yes to all - but I may not have got these right. sfc /scannow was run as Admin. The log file was just over 2MB and I did not see the text "corrupted" or "integrity" or "violat". I don't think I know how to read the CBS log file. The checked boxes in DF, Settings, Options, Advanced were : Minimize to tray Save all settings to INI file Cache Analysis Data of Multiple Drives Use custom fragmentation: both the Exclude restore point and Exclude Hibernation were checked Stop VSS Ccleaner showed only the very last restore point and would not allow deletion. The pagefile was set to none; the hibernation file was set to none and reboot was done. Clearly Pagefile is back; Hiberbate file should also be back there somewhere. Regards Phil DF, Action, Advanced, Defrag freespace was done after the first big, slow Defrag.

Did the business and it looks good. I don't know how to force files to be defragged up to the front. After three defrags it looks like this - More deleting (moving files off to EHD) will free up space. Thanks to Derek891 - krooser - Andavari for the help. Current disk state as attached. Phil

Whew! @Derek891 thanks, got that - and now have a written procedure sheet ........

And I will thank you ! After a thorough backup and a series of DF'ing I shall report the results ...... Phil

Same page here? Hmmm. I hope so, but I am the neophyte. What I see in DF, after analysing, is loads of blocks scattered all over the disk and coloured brown / buff as indicates Page File in the Drive Map. As PNG file attached. Each Page File block has a file list, most of which seem like bona fide files. My query, which is the last part of my initial post, is whether reducing the Page File using the technique(s) outlined will delete all these files shown in the file lists. I suppose a subsidiary query is if these blocks are not Page File blocks why does DF colour them as though they are. But that is secondary to whether I am OK to reduce the Windows Page File. Thanks Phil

Thank you kroozer and Andavari ! What I want to be sure of is that when reducing the pagefile segments to a minimum it does not delete all the files contained therein. I can see in DF that many of these are useful files. Will these files be safely moved ? Thanks.

DF 2.18.945 : Win7 x 64 Home Recent enlargement of files brought HDD free space right down. Deletion now restores 40% of disk to freespace. DF displays about the whole freed-up 40% colour-keyed as Page File. Each segment has a few files listed within. Defragging freespace runs through all these page file segments but leaves the files in them and all still marked as page file. Can I use SysInternals Pagedfrg.exe to 'un-page' the page file segmants? Would Windows - Computer - Advance Windows Settings - Performance - changing to a very small Page File unmark these numerous page file ? Or, would that just delete all the files contained within ? Hope this makes sense! Thank you. Phil