TeraByte Unlimited

I have been trying to solve this problem for almost a year. Back then, IFW (currently at 2.79) started getting PHYlock failures on my Win7/32 system with 4G of RAM. I can always re-boot and get IFW to work. But this problem makes my unattended scheduled backup ineffective.

I've tried to isolate what causes the failures. First I thought something had been changed by Windows Update. Then I thought it was because I left Firefox open and it used all the RAM.

I have been traveling recently, so I've run a test. Before I left for a week, I restarted the machine. I have enhanced logging (/logl:50) enabled in IFW.
For three weeks in a row, the first IFW scheduled backup runs normally. All the following backups fail with PHYlock errors.

Here is the first log section for the successful run:

[ 2/02/2013 6:28:50 am] /b /un /d:?C: /f:H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI /max:640MiB /vb /mf /logl:50
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:51 am] Image for Windows 2.79 (GUI)
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:51 am] Starting ...
imagew.exe /b /un /d:w0@0x89 /f:"H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C" /max:640MiB /vb
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] PHYLock is waiting for drive writing to stop ...
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] DLD
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] FVMS
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] BSFN
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] COV
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] GNR
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] DVTS NR:8422
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] SII VF
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] SSR
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] WLS
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:14 am] SH
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:14 am] ULV
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:14 am] CSF
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock using drive C:
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] EF
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] FFB
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] FMLCN
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] L SVCN:0 EC:1
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] CH
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] SHTPD
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] SWITCH
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] CU
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] CUC
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] EXIT
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock Started
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock Using Disk
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock version 10
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:17 am] Backup: Drive 0 (C:) C-MARS-W7 Partition (89) 99998 MiB HPFS/NTFS
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:17 am] To: H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] INFO: Total Sectors:204796620 Total Allocated:143399832
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] INFO: 130560184 Sector(s) backed up
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] Validating: C-MARS-W7 Partition (89) 99998 MiB HPFS/NTFS
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] From: H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
[ 2/02/2013 7:09:20 am] Operation Completed with Error Code 0
[ 2/02/2013 7:09:20 am] Stop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


The script runs every day, and if the image is more than 3 days old, it runs IFW. So the next time IFW runs is on 2/6, it fails:

[ 2/06/2013 6:30:26 am] /b /un /d:?C: /f:H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI /max:640MiB /vb /mf /logl:50
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:26 am] Image for Windows 2.79 (GUI)
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:26 am] Starting ...
imagew.exe /b /un /d:w0@0x89 /f:"H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C" /max:640MiB /vb
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] PHYLock is waiting for drive writing to stop ...
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] DLD
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] FVMS
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] BSFN
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] COV
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] GNR
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] DVTS NR:9965
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] EXIT
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] PHYLock Failed to Start
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Unable to start PHYLock for drive C:
You may need to reduce the cache size.
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Deleting incomplete or failed backup.
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Operation Completed with Error Code 68
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Stop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This pattern repeats every day:
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:18 am] /b /un /d:?C: /f:H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI /max:640MiB /vb /mf /logl:50
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:19 am] Image for Windows 2.79 (GUI)
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:19 am] Starting ...
imagew.exe /b /un /d:w0@0x89 /f:"H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C" /max:640MiB /vb
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] PHYLock is waiting for drive writing to stop ...
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] DLD
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] FVMS
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] BSFN
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] COV
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] GNR
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:23 am] DVTS NR:10003
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] EXIT
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] PHYLock Failed to Start
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Unable to start PHYLock for drive C:
You may need to reduce the cache size.
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Deleting incomplete or failed backup.
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Operation Completed with Error Code 68
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Stop


It continues to fail with similar results until I reboot the machine. Then it runs one more time.

This system has used this same backup script literally for years (since IFW 1.x days), and has never had issues until recently.
I have confirmed that nothing else is running on the system at the time the backup script runs - just the empty Windows desktop.

I have captured the tasklist each on each run, right before IFW starts. There is no difference in running tasks between the successful run and the failure.

So my hypotheses are:
A) something happens when the system is idle, hibernates, and wakes up that causes PHYlock failures.
B) A successful run with PHYlock does something to the system that prevents PHYlock from working again.

Neither of these seem very likely, because they would have developed "spontaneously" from a system that formerly worked.

The difference seems to be after the "DVTS NR" phase. When PHYlock works, there are a number of other phases following "DVTS NR". When it fails, the next debug output is "EXIT", then "PHYLock Failed to Start".

Here are some examples of DVTS and the number following it:
[11/21/2012 6:20:48 am] DVTS NR:5237 - Success
[11/29/2012 6:15:49 am] DVTS NR:5005 - Failed
[12/03/2012 6:18:08 am] DVTS NR:6030 - Failed
[12/04/2012 6:19:37 am] DVTS NR:6569 - Failed
[12/04/2012 9:25:49 am] DVTS NR:6646 - Success
[12/08/2012 6:20:51 am] DVTS NR:5878 - Success
[12/12/2012 6:22:44 am] DVTS NR:4881 - Failed
[12/13/2012 6:21:42 am] DVTS NR:4252 - Failed
[12/14/2012 6:21:06 am] DVTS NR:4303 - Failed
[12/15/2012 6:21:06 am] DVTS NR:4676 - Failed
[12/15/2012 11:55:55 am] DVTS NR:4412 - Success
[12/19/2012 6:25:44 am] DVTS NR:5103 - Success
[12/23/2012 6:27:58 am] DVTS NR:5901 - Failed
[12/24/2012 6:24:27 am] DVTS NR:7088 - Success
[12/27/2012 6:48:53 am] DVTS NR:8133 - Failed
[12/27/2012 9:05:04 am] DVTS NR:8106 - Success
[12/31/2012 6:18:50 am] DVTS NR:8657 - Success
[ 1/04/2013 6:24:59 am] DVTS NR:6320 - Success
[ 1/08/2013 6:23:51 am] DVTS NR:7844 - Failed
[ 1/09/2013 6:29:08 am] DVTS NR:5838 - Failed
[ 1/09/2013 6:06:41 pm] DVTS NR:5995 - Success
[ 1/13/2013 6:29:40 am] DVTS NR:6215 - Failed
[ 1/17/2013 6:30:14 am] DVTS NR:7446 - Failed
[ 1/18/2013 6:29:07 am] DVTS NR:7528 - Failed
[ 1/19/2013 6:31:50 am] DVTS NR:7467 - Failed
[ 1/19/2013 11:00:43 am] DVTS NR:7093 - Success
[ 1/23/2013 6:31:29 am] DVTS NR:8174 - Failed
[ 1/24/2013 6:29:43 am] DVTS NR:7712 - Failed
[ 1/25/2013 6:29:57 am] DVTS NR:7769 - Failed
[ 1/26/2013 6:29:37 am] DVTS NR:7704 - Failed
[ 1/26/2013 8:55:50 pm] DVTS NR:8267 - Failed
[ 1/26/2013 9:02:10 pm] DVTS NR:8262 - Success
[ 1/30/2013 6:31:27 am] DVTS NR:7990 - Failed
[ 1/31/2013 6:29:24 am] DVTS NR:8499 - Failed
[ 2/01/2013 6:30:23 am] DVTS NR:8497 - Failed
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] DVTS NR:8422 - Success
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] DVTS NR:9965 - Failed
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:23 am] DVTS NR:10003 - Failed

Looking at all the recent data, I do not see a conclusive relationship between the number following DVTS NR: and the outcome.

Probably running out of nonpaged pool memory (or it's becoming fragmented).
You could run verifier.exe and see if it reports anything - also the
performance monitor may show something.

"timg11" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

I have been trying to solve this problem for almost a year. Back then, IFW
(currently at 2.79) started getting PHYlock failures on my Win7/32 system
with 4G of RAM. I can always re-boot and get IFW to work. But this problem
makes my unattended scheduled backup ineffective.

I've tried to isolate what causes the failures. First I thought something
had been changed by Windows Update. Then I thought it was because I left
Firefox open and it used all the RAM.

I have been traveling recently, so I've run a test. Before I left for a
week, I restarted the machine. I have enhanced logging (/logl:50) enabled
in IFW.
For three weeks in a row, the first IFW scheduled backup runs normally. All
the following backups fail with PHYlock errors.

Here is the first log section for the successful run:

[ 2/02/2013 6:28:50 am] /b /un /d:?C: /f:H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
/max:640MiB /vb /mf /logl:50
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:51 am] Image for Windows 2.79 (GUI)
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:51 am] Starting ...
imagew.exe /b /un /d:w0@0x89 /f:"H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C" /max:640MiB
/vb
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] PHYLock is waiting for drive writing to stop ...
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] DLD
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] FVMS
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] BSFN
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] COV
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:52 am] GNR
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] DVTS NR:8422
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] SII VF
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] SSR
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] WLS
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:14 am] SH
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:14 am] ULV
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:14 am] CSF
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock using drive C:
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] EF
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] FFB
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] FMLCN
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] L SVCN:0 EC:1
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] CH
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] SHTPD
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] SWITCH
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] CU
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] CUC
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] EXIT
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock Started
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock Using Disk
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:15 am] PHYLock version 10
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:17 am] Backup: Drive 0 (C:) C-MARS-W7 Partition (89) 99998
MiB HPFS/NTFS
[ 2/02/2013 6:29:17 am] To: H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] INFO: Total Sectors:204796620 Total
Allocated:143399832
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] INFO: 130560184 Sector(s) backed up
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] Validating: C-MARS-W7 Partition (89) 99998 MiB
HPFS/NTFS
[ 2/02/2013 6:51:36 am] From: H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
[ 2/02/2013 7:09:20 am] Operation Completed with Error Code 0
[ 2/02/2013 7:09:20 am] Stop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


The script runs every day, and if the image is more than 3 days old, it runs
IFW. So the next time IFW runs is on 2/6, it fails:

[ 2/06/2013 6:30:26 am] /b /un /d:?C: /f:H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
/max:640MiB /vb /mf /logl:50
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:26 am] Image for Windows 2.79 (GUI)
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:26 am] Starting ...
imagew.exe /b /un /d:w0@0x89 /f:"H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C" /max:640MiB
/vb
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] PHYLock is waiting for drive writing to stop ...
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] DLD
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] FVMS
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] BSFN
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] COV
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] GNR
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] DVTS NR:9965
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] EXIT
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] PHYLock Failed to Start
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Unable to start PHYLock for drive C:
You may need to reduce the cache size.
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Deleting incomplete or failed backup.
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Operation Completed with Error Code 68
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:31 am] Stop
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This pattern repeats every day:
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:18 am] /b /un /d:?C: /f:H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C.TBI
/max:640MiB /vb /mf /logl:50
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:19 am] Image for Windows 2.79 (GUI)
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:19 am] Starting ...
imagew.exe /b /un /d:w0@0x89 /f:"H:\IMAGES\MARS\Auto7\MARS7C" /max:640MiB
/vb
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] PHYLock is waiting for drive writing to stop ...
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] DLD
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] FVMS
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] BSFN
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] COV
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:21 am] GNR
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:23 am] DVTS NR:10003
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] EXIT
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] PHYLock Failed to Start
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Unable to start PHYLock for drive C:
You may need to reduce the cache size.
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Deleting incomplete or failed backup.
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Operation Completed with Error Code 68
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:26 am] Stop


It continues to fail with similar results until I reboot the machine. Then
it runs one more time.

This system has used this same backup script literally for years (since IFW
1.x days), and has never had issues until recently.
I have confirmed that nothing else is running on the system at the time the
backup script runs - just the empty Windows desktop.

I have captured the tasklist each on each run, right before IFW starts.
There is no difference in running tasks between the successful run and the
failure.

So my hypotheses are:
A) something happens when the system is idle, hibernates, and wakes up that
causes PHYlock failures.
B) A successful run with PHYlock does something to the system that prevents
PHYlock from working again.

Neither of these seem very likely, because they would have developed
"spontaneously" from a system that formerly worked.

The difference seems to be after the "DVTS NR" phase. When PHYlock works,
there are a number of other phases following "DVTS NR". When it fails, the
next debug output is "EXIT", then "PHYLock Failed to Start".

Here are some examples of DVTS and the number following it:
[11/21/2012 6:20:48 am] DVTS NR:5237 - Success
[11/29/2012 6:15:49 am] DVTS NR:5005 - Failed
[12/03/2012 6:18:08 am] DVTS NR:6030 - Failed
[12/04/2012 6:19:37 am] DVTS NR:6569 - Failed
[12/04/2012 9:25:49 am] DVTS NR:6646 - Success
[12/08/2012 6:20:51 am] DVTS NR:5878 - Success
[12/12/2012 6:22:44 am] DVTS NR:4881 - Failed
[12/13/2012 6:21:42 am] DVTS NR:4252 - Failed
[12/14/2012 6:21:06 am] DVTS NR:4303 - Failed
[12/15/2012 6:21:06 am] DVTS NR:4676 - Failed
[12/15/2012 11:55:55 am] DVTS NR:4412 - Success
[12/19/2012 6:25:44 am] DVTS NR:5103 - Success
[12/23/2012 6:27:58 am] DVTS NR:5901 - Failed
[12/24/2012 6:24:27 am] DVTS NR:7088 - Success
[12/27/2012 6:48:53 am] DVTS NR:8133 - Failed
[12/27/2012 9:05:04 am] DVTS NR:8106 - Success
[12/31/2012 6:18:50 am] DVTS NR:8657 - Success
[ 1/04/2013 6:24:59 am] DVTS NR:6320 - Success
[ 1/08/2013 6:23:51 am] DVTS NR:7844 - Failed
[ 1/09/2013 6:29:08 am] DVTS NR:5838 - Failed
[ 1/09/2013 6:06:41 pm] DVTS NR:5995 - Success
[ 1/13/2013 6:29:40 am] DVTS NR:6215 - Failed
[ 1/17/2013 6:30:14 am] DVTS NR:7446 - Failed
[ 1/18/2013 6:29:07 am] DVTS NR:7528 - Failed
[ 1/19/2013 6:31:50 am] DVTS NR:7467 - Failed
[ 1/19/2013 11:00:43 am] DVTS NR:7093 - Success
[ 1/23/2013 6:31:29 am] DVTS NR:8174 - Failed
[ 1/24/2013 6:29:43 am] DVTS NR:7712 - Failed
[ 1/25/2013 6:29:57 am] DVTS NR:7769 - Failed
[ 1/26/2013 6:29:37 am] DVTS NR:7704 - Failed
[ 1/26/2013 8:55:50 pm] DVTS NR:8267 - Failed
[ 1/26/2013 9:02:10 pm] DVTS NR:8262 - Success
[ 1/30/2013 6:31:27 am] DVTS NR:7990 - Failed
[ 1/31/2013 6:29:24 am] DVTS NR:8499 - Failed
[ 2/01/2013 6:30:23 am] DVTS NR:8497 - Failed
[ 2/02/2013 6:28:55 am] DVTS NR:8422 - Success
[ 2/06/2013 6:30:27 am] DVTS NR:9965 - Failed
[ 2/07/2013 6:30:23 am] DVTS NR:10003 - Failed

Looking at all the recent data, I do not see a conclusive relationship
between the number following DVTS NR: and the outcome.

TeraByte Support wrote:
> Probably running out of nonpaged pool memory (or it's becoming fragmented).
>
> You could run verifier.exe and see if it reports anything - also the
> performance monitor may show something.
>

Which (or who's) "verifier.exe" are you referring to? I don't find that in the IFW folder. If I run verifier.exe from a command prompt, I get a GUI program that says "Driver Manager Verifier" in the title bar.

Please tell me more about "nonpaged pool memory" and how I measure it, manage it, and defragment it if necessary.

Task Manager reports Kernel Memory (paged and non-paged)
Windows Resource Monitor has a bar graph for "Hardware Reserved", "In Use", "Modified", "Standby", and "Free".
Below that there are totals for Available, Cached, Total, and Installed.
There are small bar graphs for "27% Used Physical Memory", "978 MB In Use", and "2561MB Available".

Just how much nonpaged pool memory is required for PHYlock? I have a relatively small partition by today's standards at 100GiB.
This article <http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinov ... 11216.aspx> seems to indicate that a WIndows 7 32 bit system should have
"min( ~75% of RAM, 2GB)" of nonpaged pool memory.

The article also seem to imply that it is non-trivial to measure nonpaged pool memory (running a debugging version of Windows and running Process Explorer with a special set of symbols.

Are you aware of any command line tool that I can put in my backup script to capture the nonpaged pool memory status before running IFW? I'm going to try sysinternals rammap.
What tools do you recommend that can compact, garbage collect, or defragment nonpaged pool memory?

Thanks!

I'm still trying to figure this out. I have researched "nonpaged pooled memory" and found a tool called RAMMAP from systinternals.com.

Here's how RAMMAP reports the RAM when IFW fails. The system has been running a couple of days at this point.
http://i.imgur.com/0NUq1q7.png

Here's how RAMMAP reports the RAM right after a reboot. Right after this, I ran IFW and it worked properly
http://i.imgur.com/wb10ynl.png

(I still can't figure out how to turn on BBCode to enable inline images - apologies for the inconvenience)

So there is about 90M of nonpaged pool when IFW fails. There is 150M of nonpaged pool when IFW runs.

My questions now:
1) What is the requirement of nonpaged pool for IFW to run?
2) What causes the loss of the nonpaged pool as the system is running?
3) How can I restore the nonpaged pool without rebooting?
4) Why am I the only one having this issue? I'm still puzzled that IFW worked fine for many years on this system, then this problem appeared. What changed?

There is no single value - it all depends on the options set and the file
system. Use validator to see how much non-paged pool is being used when
it's working. Say it needs 20M and you have 90M, but if your non-paged pool
is fragmented with no block 20M in size then it wouldn't find a space to
allocate. You may want to defrag your page file as that can add extra
memory requirements.

"timg11" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

I'm still trying to figure this out. I have researched "nonpaged pooled
memory" and found a tool called RAMMAP from systinternals.com.

Here's how RAMMAP reports the RAM when IFW fails. The system has been
running a couple of days at this point.

[
http://i.imgur.com/0NUq1q7.png
](http://i.imgur.com/0NUq1q7.png)

Here's how RAMMAP reports the RAM right after a reboot. Right after this, I
ran IFW and it worked properly

[
http://i.imgur.com/wb10ynl.png
](http://i.imgur.com/wb10ynl.png)

(I still can't figure out how to turn on BBCode to enable inline images -
apologies for the inconvenience)

So there is about 90M of nonpaged pool when IFW fails. There is 150M of
nonpaged pool when IFW runs.

My questions now:
1) What is the requirement of nonpaged pool for IFW to run?
2) What causes the loss of the nonpaged pool as the system is running?
3) How can I restore the nonpaged pool without rebooting?
4) Why am I the only one having this issue? I'm still puzzled that IFW
worked fine for many years on this system, then this problem appeared. What
changed?

TeraByte Support wrote:
> Use validator to see how much non-paged pool is being used when
> it's working.

Please explain what "validator" your are referring to. I do not find a program validator.exe in my "C:\Program Files\TeraByte Unlimited" folders.
I don't find validator.exe anywhere on my C:\ drive, actually.

When I Google with the search "validator site:terabyteunlimited.com", I get no matches, so I don't think it is part of your freeware utilities.

When I Google on Validator alone, I get references to various tools for HTML and Java syntax verification.

When I Google on "Validator Memory", I find some tools for software development, but they seem to be designed to integrate into development environments, and not for end-user debugging.

Is there a specific "Validator" you are referring to, or is it a general term? If the latter please give me an example of a specific command-line utility that I could integrate into my CMD file to measure the pool right before IFW runs.

Thanks!

After researching "defragging the page file" I found http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/en/index.html.
The Sysinternals PageDeFrag.exe was never updated past Windows XP.

UltraDefrag indicates that my system drive is 0.37% fragmented, and the page file is not listed being fragmented.

sorry - "verifier" just type that at the start / run prompt.

"timg11" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

TeraByte Support wrote:
> Use validator to see how much non-paged pool is being used when
> it's working.

Please explain what "validator" your are referring to. I do not find a
program validator.exe in my "C:\Program Files\TeraByte Unlimited" folders.
I don't find validator.exe anywhere on my C:\ drive, actually.

When I Google with the search "validator site:terabyteunlimited.com", I get
no matches, so I don't think it is part of your freeware utilities.

When I Google on Validator alone, I get references to various tools for HTML
and Java syntax verification.

When I Google on "Validator Memory", I find some tools for software
development, but they seem to be designed to integrate into development
environments, and not for end-user debugging.

Is there a specific "Validator" you are referring to, or is it a general
term? If the latter please give me an example of a specific command-line
utility that I could integrate into my CMD file to measure the pool right
before IFW runs.

Thanks!

On Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:10:19 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
timg11 disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>The Sysinternals PageDeFrag.exe was never updated past Windows XP.

The free Defraggler can do this.

http://www.piriform.com/docs/defraggler/technical-information/boot-time-defrag
--

Cheers

DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).

Wow - using the "Driver Verifier Manager" would be a great topic for a tutorial. It is clearly not for the casual user.
I found this information <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244617> to be helpful, but it did not really explain how to capture details of non-paged pool memory use.

Rather than figuring out how to use Verifier, I thought it might be quicker to just use trial and error on the IFW settings, varying the various parameters to see if I can find a combination that works. I found that setting the Memory slider (the one that is calibrated only with "-" and "+") to the position one stop to the left of center. In that position, I was able to start a backup that had previously failed, without rebooting.

IFW could be made easier to use if the specific error message for this situation that is written in the log file was changed from this:
"Unable to start PHYLock for drive C: You may need to reduce the cache size."
to this:
"Unable to start PHYLock for drive C: due to lack of memory. You may need to reduce the Memory slider in IFW settings"