Why is my paging file in 4,096 fragments?!?

[Goldom]

Good god, what the heck happened? It's been one chunck for years. Recently, it became 2. Today I analyze the drive in the defragger, and paging file has over 4000 fragments. No wonder computer is running so slowly. I've disabled it and have it defragmenting now, but what in the world could have caused it? (would a system restore do that? Cause I did just do that to un-break my registry.)

Another question - I know to turn off the paging file in order to defrag it, but when I turn it back on, its like "there's already a pagefile.sys, wanna write over it with a new one?" and I have to say yes to turn it on. It seems to me, if it's gonna be writing a new one anyway (ie, causing it to fragment again), would it not be better to turn it off, just delete the pagefile.sys, defrag (in much less time since it doesn't have to do that huge file), then turn it on, and let it write a new one clean?

[Crazy Guggenheim]

1. First. After the defrags finished run a scandisk/errorchecker

and make sure it's set to scan for free space and to fix errors. After that check for viruses and spyware. DO NOT TURN OFF THE PAGE FILE WITH NORMAL USE! Just let it add the new one.

What's your operating system?

[Goldom]

2. I ran scandisk before defrag.

no errors. I know not to leave the page file off while using the computer, but it's stuck as unmovable data if on while running defrag. And OS is XP (sp2)

After defrag and re-enabling it, paging file is now back to only 2 fragments. I dunno why it didn't make it one, but it's better than 4000.

[indy_azcat]

3. that's why I created a separate HD partition for my page file

and never let windows manage it.

[Goldom]

4. I lied.

After rebooting, pagefile went all the way to 1 fragment. yay. Now... what's an MFT, and why is it in 3 fragments still? Or maybe it's always been that way, I've never noticed that line before.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

5. MFT is Master File Table. It will have a little fragmentation. But,

I would run it Defrag again to try and get the MFT file defrag'ed.