Free Ramdisk for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and 2003 Server

1. Parameters registry is

   HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RRamdisk\Parameters\

   Why RRamdisk? Because XP SP1 contain a Ramdisk driver for XP Embeded.

2. Parameter: DiskSizeM, DiskSizeK

   Your desired disk size, the unit is M bytes or K bytes. The DiskSizeK has higher priority.

3. Parameter: MediaType

   The reported drive type:

   1 — RAM Drive
   2 — Fixed Media (default)
   3 — Removable Media
   4 — Floppy Diskette

4. Parameter: DriveLetter

   Name say it is, default is R:

5. 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.

6. Parameter: Image

   Maintained by rdutil utlilty, mainly for preload NTFS image. Eg:

   1. Load ramdisk, don’t write anything.
   2. Format the ramdisk

      FORMAT /FS:NTFS /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:

   3. Adjust logfile to minimum size

      CHKDSK /L:2048 R:

   4. Reset access rights

      CACLS R:\ /G: BUILTIN\Adminstrators:F

   5. Create necessary structure

      MKDIR R:\TEMP

   6. Pack the disk image and save to registry

      rdutil R: registry

   Notes:

   1. You should leave RamDisk as clean as possible before packing, the max packed image size is 64K.
   2. The disk image only valid to same RamDisk size, you should re-create disk image when size changed.
   3. The driver internal formater will disable if this registry present, corrupt/size-mismatch value leave an un-formated disk.

   rdutil Utlility Usage:

   1. Backup registry image

      rdutil save filename

   2. Restore registry image

      rdutil load filename

   3. Report packed image size

      rdutil R:
      rdutil registry
      rdutil unpacked_file

      Second command reading DriveLetter from registry, while the third is packing an unpacked image file.

   4. Packing image & save to registry

      rdutil R: registry

   5. Packing image & save to file

      rdutil R: packed_file

   6. Unpacking image

      rdutil unpack packed_file unpacked_file

   7. Link NTFS junction to Ramdisk

      rdutil link temp \

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. TEMP directory – You should set TEMP/TMP directory to TEMP sub-directory, don’t use the root directory.
10. NTFS junction point to RAMDrive – You can’t create NTFS junction point to RAMDrive media type, Fixed & Removable Media type should work.
11. Connectix VirtualPC compatibility – Someone report problem with VirtualPC+physical volume/disk. Please set MediaType to RAMDrive/Removable.
12. 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 Ramdisk

    rdutil link C:\TEMP TEMP
    link C:\TEMP to \TEMP at Ramdisk

    rmdir C:\ramdisk
    rmdir can remove the link without clear target content

    NoDriveLetter configuration isn’t recommended, because most AntiVirus software cannot realtime scan Volume w/o Drive Letter.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 3:20 am and is filed under Operating Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.