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)
June 5th, 2007 23:56
Man, I would really like to thank you for putting Gavotte’s work here. I have been finding a solution like this for the past 5 hours trying out Google-d Win 2K solutions and trial softwares, and most of the time I spent were on Googling and removing them (one almost killed my system). Once again, a big thanks - and I hope you can convey that to Gavotte himself too.
August 22nd, 2007 07:32
Gavotte! Excellent job!
Your Rramdisk works very fine. It is even suitable to put Windows swapfile on it (what I’ve done).
Thank you.
Robert
August 28th, 2007 02:07
Does not work in Vista 64-bit
September 20th, 2007 00:04
It would be nice to see a vista 64-bit version of this.
September 20th, 2007 10:59
Anyone encountered this problem? After creating the RAM disk, I restarted my pc and windows reported that the disk might be corrupted or using a format tat is not compatible with windows. Anyway i am using windows XP.
September 21st, 2007 14:25
Did you test memory with Memtest?
September 23rd, 2007 18:50
[...] an image file into RAM either after starting or on boot up through an autoexec.bat argument. More configuration choices including registry editing are available [...]
September 24th, 2007 10:44
Robert, I did not test the memory with Memtest. what is the purpose of Memtest?
September 24th, 2007 11:37
As the name says
http://www.memtest.org
http://www.memtest86.com
Using Google is recommended behaviour.
September 24th, 2007 18:20
i already use the memtest.. no errors occured.. hmmm any extra configuration needed after creating the RAM drive? My RAM drive works when it is first created. Once I restarted my pc, windows report that the disk might be corrupted when i tried to aaccess the ram drive
September 25th, 2007 03:21
Run ramdisk.exe.
Set it as “Fixed Media”. What size did you set?
In my case I set 512MB (I have plenty of RAM) and letter “Z”.
Try to run Memtest again with the following configuration:
At the very beginning of the test press C (config box will appear), then 2 then 3 then 3 and again 3. You will force thorough test of all memory.
Run the test for the whole night. In the morning you will have results.
September 25th, 2007 09:23
It worked when I set it as “Fixed Media”. Previously it did not work because I set it as “RAM Drive”. hmmm what is the difference between these two types?
October 3rd, 2007 06:39
First, sorry for the delay. I’ve been out of my home.
Difference is only in bit responsible for media identification.
Some programs “don’t like” virtual disks but they look only at media identifier. If you set the identifier as fixed drive everything become O.K.
Luckily you solved the problem yourself.
Good luck and greetings from Poland
October 9th, 2007 09:39
okie..thanx a lot robert..appreciate your help
October 9th, 2007 10:10
is there any way to load the image to the ram disk without using the GUI provided?
October 14th, 2007 05:28
Hi mr. Gavotte, I like to compile the driver myself, would that be possible? I use VC Express and have 3790.1830 SDK and tried the Win2000 example from DDK, I asume you used the example to build your version of ramdisk.sys, can you make a little master-class for us to get some insight in the techniques used?
thx for the good work and grtz from Holland
December 12th, 2007 08:24
[...] RAMDisk Guide I found a better, faster, and more compatable RAMdisk here, Free Ramdisk for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and 2003 Server
January 7th, 2008 18:05
Hmm..i have problem to remove ramdisk. It would return on next reboot. Any ideas..?
January 12th, 2008 16:20
on the other hand i think run as admin would help..
January 30th, 2008 16:51
I have 4 gig of Ram on my new XP box. I made a 750 MB Swapfile on my new virtual drive. I opened the entiire MS Office suite and 13 other apps along with 2 major resource hogging games without a hitch. I then rebooted and the drive held it’s formatting. A million thanks!!
February 20th, 2008 03:53
“Ramdisk.exe accepts a image file as its argument so that the image file can be loaded automatically into the Ramdisk from command line. Potential usage include adding of “ramdisk imgfilename” to system boot up script such as autoexec.bat to load the data into memory disk.”
I would love to do this. However, I read the instructions and could not understand them. Can someone please explain the instructions to me in another way. Thanks
February 25th, 2008 06:41
This program fails to install on my XP Pro 64 bits machine. Any ideas why? Thanks guys.B.
February 27th, 2008 14:45
Dear Robert, this program failed to run in my machine running Window Vista Business 32 bit. I attempted a few setting of xxMb to no avail but returned with an error ‘blue screen’ message and rebooted. I have to run in Window safe mood every time to install the program. Any ideas what’s wrong? and how to overcome? Thank you.
February 27th, 2008 14:47
Sorry, for typing error, it was ‘uninstalled’ in Window safe mode.
February 27th, 2008 15:34
no
February 28th, 2008 03:35
Dear Chang,
I don’t know the behaviour of Rramdisk under Win Vista. I still use Win2000. In my oppinion this is the most stable one among all the Windows family. Not all what is newest is always the best.
March 1st, 2008 04:03
The ramdisk driver has an error. Setting the ramdisk media type to ramdisk is missing a component for proper initialization (the other file types work well). Another drive that has removable media is required to load up required drivers for this ramdisk - without the removable media the ramdisk is RAW. As soon as the removable media is inserted the Ramdisk is usable.
This is most likely an oversight as that the writer having this dependent component loaded up in the background didn’t realize it was dependent. Systems without this component do not work. There is a newer release as well 01.01.2008 which allows for >=4GB ramdisks (the error is still apparent within this new release)
March 1st, 2008 04:05
05.23.2007 version and greater allows for x64 support
March 1st, 2008 04:58
found the reason why it fails
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257405
Windows XP Update:
Installing the Ramdisk sample driver in a NTFS only machine might make it unusable. To resolve this problem make the following change:
While you call the IoCreateDevice function (RamdiskAddDevice function in pnp.c), change the device type from FILE_DEVICE_VIRTUAL_DISK to FILE_DEVICE_DISK and recompile the driver. After you install the driver, restart the system in order to access the Ramdisk through Explorer.
Someone please inform Gavotte and have a fix made. Thank you
March 6th, 2008 03:16
Just set up a 256Mb ramdrive using this. Perfect. Wish it was opensourced tho…
March 6th, 2008 06:05
dr Mark,
What do you mean by 64 bits version support ?
The download link on that page is not the latest version?
Thank you.
>> dr mark
>> March 1st, 2008 04:05
>> 28
>> 05.23.2007 version and greater allows for x64 support
March 21st, 2008 13:07
Tried installing under xp64, clicking on the “Install Ramdisk” button gave me a “failed” dialog box.
ramdisk.exe is dated 2/14/2004
rramdisk.sys is dated 12/9/2003
readfirst is dated 5/27/2007
April 7th, 2008 22:31
[...] http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/27/free-ramdisk-for-windows-vista-xp-2000-and-2003-server/ ย้าย temp เลือก control panel /system/advanced แล้วเลือก [...]
April 11th, 2008 15:12
[...] the memory to 2GB is recommended and besides, you can create a RAMdisk for more working space using Gavotte’s free ramdisk [...]
April 18th, 2008 20:43
Good job writing the article!
See the a newer version here:
http://www.badongo.com/file/7201826
ChangeLog:
12.09.2003 fix SMP/HT compatibility
11.26.2003 fix re-format problem & some typo
11.25.2003 merge rdpack and rdj to rdutil
11.24.2003 add DiskSizeK registry, more compatible w/ antivirus software
05.23.2007 x64 support
01.01.2008 support >=4G ram under 32bit windows (UsePAE=1)
May 4th, 2008 21:06
I am unable to load a previous saved image from a command line…
using: ramdisk tempimage I have this error:
error: MFMT: Open R: failed 2
If I load the image from the GUI it is loaded rigth…
Where is the trouble?
Thanks for the answers.
May 13th, 2008 04:53
[...] реализовать задуманное. Итак, берем реализацию rramdisk, про которую сам автор говорит: There are plenty of Ramdisk driver and [...]