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Configuring Page file on a SCSI drive fails on Generation 1 Hyper-V virtual machine

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Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:
  • You create a virtual machine that is running on Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.
  • You manually configure a page file on a non-system drive, which is a virtual hard disk (VHD) attached to emulated SCSI adapter.
  • You restart the virtual machine.
In this scenario, no Pagefile.sys is created under the selected drive. Additionally, on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, you receive the following error message
Windows created a temporary paging file on your computer because of a problem that occurred with your paging file configuration when you started your computer. The total paging file size for all disk drives may be somewhat larger than the size you specified.

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Status

This behavior is by design.

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Workaround

If page files are required on non-system volumes on Hyper-V Generation 1 virtual machines, the volume will have to be created on a VHD that is presented as an IDE device.

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More Information

This failure is noticed on Hyper-V Generation 1 virtual machines. When page file creation is attempted on any volume, the Create PageFile API queries the storage stack if all the drivers in the stack support paging. If the page file is being created on a VHD attached to SCSI adapter, this query will fail. However, if the VHD is attached to an IDE adapter, this operation will succeed.

On Hyper-V Generation 2 virtual machines, where only SCSI adapters are supported, creating a paging file on any volume will be successful. Generation 2 virtual machines are available on Hyper-V starting with Windows Server 2012 R2.

Note: For a host running Windows Server 2012 R2, you can create and manage two types of virtual machines, including the newer type supported in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2, called “generation 2 virtual machines.” Before generation 2 virtual machines existed, virtual machines were all of one type, which are now referred to as “generation 1 virtual machines.”

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Keywords: kbhyperv, kb

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Article Info
Article ID : 2929766
Revision : 1
Created on : 1/7/2017
Published on : 2/14/2014
Exists online : False
Views : 598