Have a read of this article, it may give you a few pointers on fixing your swao file woes...

Linux.com :: Increase your available swap space with a swap file

this is my fstab file, where do i put the line for my swap partition.

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=a78fc431-eb95-4201-a0f0-11d2aa1f93b7 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=6662c3a1-0ff8-4a9f-af95-928c044ee1a4 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0

Bump!

Hi again apemax,

You will need to know what device your new swap partition is, in order to mount it. If you already know what device it is, then great, just say and I'll try to come up an fstab file for you. If not, then try this:

If you created a new 400Mb swap partition, then it will show up as another device in /dev
Enter these commands into a terminal:

This will show you how many SATA hard disk partitions your Linux install recognises. The one with the highest number at the end *should* be the most recent, e.g. your new swap partition.

it is /dev/sda4

Ok, run this command to backup your current fstab file:

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup

Now open fstab in gedit using sudo, and replace it with this:
Re-boot, and your swap should be added. To check, enter free into a terminal, and check the amount of swap it shows.