Free Ramdisk for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and 2003 Server
- Parameters registry is
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RRamdisk\Parameters\
Why RRamdisk? Because XP SP1 contain a Ramdisk driver for XP Embeded.
- Parameter: DiskSizeM, DiskSizeK
Your desired disk size, the unit is M bytes or K bytes. The DiskSizeK has higher priority.
- Parameter: MediaType
The reported drive type:
1 — RAM Drive
2 — Fixed Media (default)
3 — Removable Media
4 — Floppy Diskette - Parameter: DriveLetter
Name say it is, default is R:
- Parameter: SectorsPerCluster
Your desired cluster size, zero for driver pickup:
<= 2M FAT12, cluster=512
<= 32M FAT16, cluster=512
<= 64M FAT16, cluster=1k
<= 128M FAT16, cluster=2k
<= 256M FAT16, cluster=4k
<= 512M FAT32, cluster=2k
<= 16G FAT32, cluster=4k
and more...You can specify smaller cluster size, force pre-format as FAT32.
- Parameter: Image
Maintained by rdutil utlilty, mainly for preload NTFS image. Eg:
- Load ramdisk, don’t write anything.
- Format the ramdisk
FORMAT /FS:NTFS /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:
- Adjust logfile to minimum size
CHKDSK /L:2048 R:
- Reset access rights
CACLS R:\ /G: BUILTIN\Adminstrators:F
- Create necessary structure
MKDIR R:\TEMP
- Pack the disk image and save to registry
rdutil R: registry
Notes:
- You should leave RamDisk as clean as possible before packing, the max packed image size is 64K.
- The disk image only valid to same RamDisk size, you should re-create disk image when size changed.
- The driver internal formater will disable if this registry present, corrupt/size-mismatch value leave an un-formated disk.
rdutil Utlility Usage:
- Backup registry image
rdutil save filename
- Restore registry image
rdutil load filename
- Report packed image size
rdutil R:
rdutil registry
rdutil unpacked_fileSecond command reading DriveLetter from registry, while the third is packing an unpacked image file.
- Packing image & save to registry
rdutil R: registry
- Packing image & save to file
rdutil R: packed_file
- Unpacking image
rdutil unpack packed_file unpacked_file
- Link NTFS junction to Ramdisk
rdutil link temp \
- You can re-format RamDisk except RAMDrive media type. Eg:
FixedMedia type:
FORMAT /FS:NTFS /FORCE /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:RemovableMedia type:
ECHO Y | FORMAT /FS:NTFS /FORCE /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:You can place your format command to startup script. I don’t recommend re-format to FAT, the pre-formated RamDisk is more efficient than other format utililty.
- Pagefile support – You can set pagefile to FixMedia type disk w/ pre-formated system. If you need other MediaType or re-format, use the addswap.exe utility:
addswap r:\pagefile.sys 16 32
Create pagefile r:\pagefile.sys with min=16M max=32M.
- TEMP directory – You should set TEMP/TMP directory to TEMP sub-directory, don’t use the root directory.
- NTFS junction point to RAMDrive – You can’t create NTFS junction point to RAMDrive media type, Fixed & Removable Media type should work.
- Connectix VirtualPC compatibility – Someone report problem with VirtualPC+physical volume/disk. Please set MediaType to RAMDrive/Removable.
- Mountpoint without DriveLetter
Clear DriveLetter registry value will not create Drive Letter for Ramdisk.
Attn. Don’t delete the DriveLetter registry, which fall to default R:. You can setup mountpoint/junction linking to this unnamed Ramdisk. Eg:
rdutil link C:\ramdisk
link C:\ramdisk to root of Ramdiskrdutil link C:\TEMP TEMP
link C:\TEMP to \TEMP at Ramdiskrmdir C:\ramdisk
rmdir can remove the link without clear target contentNoDriveLetter configuration isn’t recommended, because most AntiVirus software cannot realtime scan Volume w/o Drive Letter.
Pages: 1 2
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Entries (RSS)
July 25th, 2010 17:54
When run Ramdisk and select Media Type is “Fixed Media” or “Removable Media”, ramdisk is OK when i reboot my PC.
But when i select Media Type is “RAM Drive”, after reboot, ramdisk is inaccessible.
OS: Windows XP SP3
Physical RAM: 2 GB
Ramdisk size: 128 MB, Drive Letter: R
July 16th, 2010 09:50
Good info. But all the banner ads make me want to vomit!
July 16th, 2010 09:50
Good info but all the banner ads make me want to vomit!
June 21st, 2010 16:38
If using 4GB or more on a 32bit OS, this proggy does not use the unused leftovers from the bios.
I tried it on 32bit Win7 Enterprise. Making a 512MB ramdisk takes away exactly that from the windows ram.
June 17th, 2010 16:32
Putting the virtual memory swapfile … into a RAMdisk?
Have you lost your marbles?
Also Vista with 256 (or indeed, effectively 192)mb of RAM … oh god … does it even run? It barely loads (after 10 minutes) on a 512mb machine.
Still if this can boost e.g. web browser speed (the option to just hold all tempfiles in memory instead of on disk seems to have vanished these days, even though it’s far less necessary to keep them long-term on broadband than dialup) it could be worth a look-in…
June 14th, 2010 08:34
See this page for ENGLISH translation on the official download page+other infos.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chweng.idv.tw%2Fswintro%2Framdisk.php
May 27th, 2010 21:27
imho this is a best utility tested by me from all!
April 27th, 2010 04:08
i get a failed message too
March 15th, 2010 08:30
Thank you very much! The software works great for my Thinkpad t43. I have just upgraded to 2GB of RAM and put all temporary files (Firefox, Windows Temp…) into 384MB of Ramdisk. My laptop run much much faster than before. No problem, so far!
February 28th, 2010 08:07
ao no one knows how to unistall it it from win7 32 , i guess, the instructions offered on the gui do not work as it reappears and i see a few postings on the issue but NO responses sad state to say all it can do but not give a solution to unistall it
February 28th, 2010 07:51
nice lil progy . i installed in win7 ultimate 32 as i have 4gb ram. so i use it for the unused.. problem is i cannot unistall it .. if i do do it does only temp.. as soon as later i boot up the r disk reappears… when it si on i can erase it boot up again and it is back why?? any ideas i would like the option to take i out completely if i choose to…
help please
February 19th, 2010 19:07
@Dave
There is a GUI for ImDisk. Look in Control Panel. Regarding image files it is also possible to mount image files by right-clicking in Explorer and select option for mounting as ImDisk virtual drive.
February 1st, 2010 06:15
also to previous poster, imdisk is junk. I run it and a bunch of black text goes up the screen and it stops but there is no GUI or anything
February 1st, 2010 06:12
this is okay but kinda crappy, the ram drive should access at like 1000Mb/s as ram is FAR faster than hard drives, but it doesn’t it accesses only twice as fast or equal to a hard drive. Also it tells me to reboot every time I change a setting, it pisses me off.
isn’t there anything better? something that actually thinks at the speed of ram?
January 17th, 2010 12:06
IMdisk is better and freeware.
http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html#ImDisk
January 7th, 2010 11:35
[...] 7. Gavotte_RAMDisk_1.0.4096.5_20081113.7z (160 KB, MD5: e362a8fe59c57c4114e46600340a6c1c) This webpage of Digital Life has a tutorial on the setting up of the ramdisk. For x86 users Please do not forget to click on [...]
November 13th, 2009 03:50
[...] using a free implementation that can be found here. You can follow these steps for a details explanation of this tool and installation [...]
November 11th, 2009 03:56
Strinzi, did you have a closer look at BootLand thread (all posts) mentioned in my post from Nov-08?
November 10th, 2009 07:24
I get a failed msg. under vista 64 with admin rights. I cant install the driver…..
Gavotte_RAMDisk_1.0.4096.5_200811130
November 9th, 2009 19:25
Two tips for new users of this forum.
1) When you submit a new post, it will appear immediately, but at the top of the page and not at the bottom.
2) Do not include URL links in your post. They will initially appear in full, but will be later deleted. I guess this is done to keep the thread clean of those viagra links and other garbage.
Links to screenshots ending with .png are apparently allowed, at least for now.
November 8th, 2009 19:06
Ying, google “BootLand Gavotte’s RRamdisk, New version is out” then look for post #36, the zip file is at the bottom.