AMD Radeon™ RAMDisk User`s Manual and FAQ
Contents
1. 33 5 Known Issues 1 If the TEMP environment variable points to an invalid location the following problems may arise e Attempts to install RAMDisk may fail with an Internal Error message e The RAMDisk configuration tool may fail to start with an Invalid Picture message e Attempting to uninstall the software may fail with an Internal Error message 2 If the TEMP environment variable points to a location on the RAMDisk the following issues may arise e Attempting to uninstall the software may fail with an Internal Error message e You may be unable to stop the RAMDisk driver without rebooting 3 In many cases using RAMDisk will exercise parts of system memory that may never be used in normal operations depending on the typical use of the system We have found in many cases that RAMDisk exposes bad memory areas very quickly that otherwise were rarely or never accessed If you are having problems with RAMDisk typically BSODs or system freeze up test your system memory using a memory diagnostic tool such as memtest86 http www memtest86 com or memtest86 http www memtest org 4 When using RAMDisk with Acronis backup and imaging tools the system will not boot properly when the RAMDisk is running but will crash with a BSOD indicating that snapman sys caused the system to shut down This driver is a key component of the Acronis product and is incompatible with Dataram RAMDisk The syste2. Label it RAMDiskVE and do not create w a TEMP directory If creating a NTFS disk you have the option to set the drive label this will help to identify the RAMDisk in Windows Explorer You can also choose to create a TEMP directory automatically If you use the RAMDisk as the system TEMP directory by changing the system environment variables TEMP and TMP then keep in mind that many applications will use this space including applications and applications installation programs In particular if an application installation program expects to write files to the system TEMP directory and then expects those files to be present after a reboot to complete the installation and you are not saving and restoring the disk on reboot the application installer will fail and may leave your system in an unstable state In addition if the RAMDisk is too small the TEMP directory may fill up Many applications do not handle a full TEMP directory gracefully Save Mode When I make changes to the files on the disk save them as they occur v Use this setting to tell RAMDisk what to do with the changes you make to the image Your choices are Do not save them all changes will be lost each time the RAMDisk is stopped Use this option if you are only storing scratch files or other files you don t want to have available when you reboot your computer Save them on shutdown with this option the contents of the RAMDisk will be saved to a
3. your computer and navigate to IHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Installer Products You should see something similar to the attached image step2 Under Products you should see one item similar to 01EA3EA186A505444ABA7E966648BE86 These numbers may not match whose Product is Radeon Ramdisk You have to delete that specific product Just that one and its subkeys will be automatically deleted Do not delete the entire products After this you can install any version of RAMDisk successfully stepi Eile View VM a wu 689 Ble File Edit View Favorites Help jd p Group Policy Name Data EN 3 HelpAndSupport ab Default value not set Pi Hints ab AuthorizedCDFP Before deleting verify that it HomeGroup contains ramdisk in its d p 0 Installer Comments nstallProperties Rond Eu Folders ab Contact ramdisk dataram co TERE J Secure 2b DisplayName Radeon RAMDisk pall UpgradeCodes ab DisplayVersion 4301 i fg UserData D EstimatedSize REG DWORD 0x00001910 6416 2 5 1 5 18 2 HelpLink REG_EXPAND_SZ http www radeonramdisk com support b J Components Delete this key and its subitemsr x 4 Products Do not delete products 20131125 4 O1EA3EA186A505445 5 InstallLocation i Features ab InstallSource ZASainath es 5 Language 0x00000409 1033 i E i Patches ab LocalPackage C WINDOWS Installer fSac8de msi
4. It is highly recommended that all users READ THE INSTRUCTIONS this document before trying the various RAMDisk settings How does it work RAMDisk is a kernel level driver that presents a standard disk drive to the OS However it stores and retrieves data from the system RAM on your motherboard instead of an actual physical disk Along with the Kernel Driver is a GUI that talks to the driver and allows the user to set various options as well as start and stop the Driver create or delete a RAMDisk The Driver has been written to WDM standards and creates a low level disk object that Windows Device Manager and Disk Management are able to see and manage You can partition format mount a volume and assign multiple drive letters to RAMDisk but only if you would know how to do those things with a regular disk RAMDisk does not do multiple drive letters for you Upon successful start of the RAMDisk a kernel level driver RAMDiskVE sys is loaded into the Windows System32 drivers folder This driver will be available to Windows each time RAMDisk starts It is removed when RAMDisk is stopped What is the benefit In a word SPEED Most users use RAMDisk to speed up applications like Games Internet Explorer cache for faster web surfing Audio and Video editing CAD programs Software compilers Databases Speeding up CD duplication SETI processing TEMP files Swap space Web server cache Custom application
5. Copyright 2008 2014 Dataram Inc RAMDisk is a Dataram product AMD brand technology names and logos used under license from Advanced Micro Devices Inc 35
6. Background Update you may not be able to stop the driver without a reboot due to the fact that the disk is being accessed by the backup feature If the driver is unable to unload successfully you will get an error message stating RAMDisk was unable to stop and advising a reboot Reboot and RAMDisk will be stopped Settings Tab The settings tab can be in either create Mode or load existing image mode Using create Mode a new RAM Disk can be created When I click start and assign it drive StoreImage at CARAMDisk img using 40 of the maximum 3188 Megabytes RADEON RAMDISK When I make changes to the files on the disk AMDA 10 Using load existing image Mode an existing image is used when RAM Disk is started File View Help Settings Event Log When I click start FromImage CARAMDisk img using 47 ofthe maximum 2790 Megabytes RADEON RAMDISK Leave it unlabeled and do not create a TEMP directory When I make changes to the files on the disk AMDA Start RAMDisk This is the main GUI screen you will see each time you start the Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility program in the Radeon RAMDisk program group if the Advanced option under the View menu is not checked This tab will walk you through configuring your RAMDisk Simply answer each question in order Some of your answers will cause other fields to ap
7. Usage ab ModifyPath MsiExec exe I 1AE3AE10 SAG8 4450 A4AB E76966 2 1 1007CGBA6D7CO 7319E3BS2CF3ECISG as publisher i C Features ab Readme Pod B InstallProperties lab 2b UninstallString EXPAND 52 MsiExec exe I 1AE3AE10 5A68 4450 A4AB E76966 0 Usage aB URLInfoAbout SZ 5 pf 508C08D43C7652547AABCD3412E5197 2 202603 8 2715430 57 URLUPdateinfo i HT internet Settings Ro Version 0x04030000 67305472 HE Bos TB ine v 2 VersionMajor REG_DWORD 0x00000004 4 lt gt 855 VersionMinor REG_DWORD 0x00000003 3 LOCAL MACHINE SOETWARF Micencoft Windowe Inctaller leerNata S 1 5 19 N1 EA3EAT1RRASOSAAAAR A TFORRRARRERR InctallDranertiec 31 File View VM a u 68 Bie Ow File Edit View Favorites Help gt InkSeg RichlnkSegment Name Data VIC QR ic ab Default value not set nputProcessor RioEventSender T i o AdvertiseFl 0x00000184 gt InputProcessor RioEventSender 1 oa a 000000001 c gt InputProcessor RioTabletlnput a ized LUA 000000000 gt J InputProcessor RioTabletinput 1 x Gs a REG MULTI SZ ab Clients _ B InstalledApp gt InstalledUpdate 1 DeploymentFlags REG DWORD 0x00000002 2 J Installer RS InstanceType REG DWORD 0x00000000 0 n Features 89 Langua
8. Use this option to create a new disk using the specified format options The newly created disk is assigned a drive letter and saved to the image file path shown in the Image File box loaded automatically when RAMDisk starts Load Disk the Specified Saved Image Check this box to have the img file shown in the Image File box loaded automatically when RAMDisk starts Itis important to understand that this img file is not a standard disk image file but rather contains some information specific to the RAMDisk disk geometry so you may not be able to use other disk image management software to create edit or save a img file even if the img file extension might lead you to believe you can The actual img file is not encrypted and can be viewed with hex editors etc and information can be extracted Itis best to use this feature after you have your settings worked out the way you would like them It is important to understand that once the RAMDisk driver is running it continues to run even through reboots if configured to do so in the Options tab regardless of your settings in the Load Disk Image on Startup checkbox This setting simply tells 17 AMD the Driver to either load a pre specified image to the RAMDisk checked or create a new blank one unchecked upon startup The disk image file must be accessible when the driver starts For RAMDisks that you start and stop within a session without a reboot the disk
9. 8 1 2 I format a RAMDisk drive Yes RAMDisk drives can be formatted using Windows Disk Management It is not recommended using Partition Magic or other 3rd party disk management tools since they have not been tested for use with RAMDisk 27 AMD How dol create a non NTFS formatted RAM disk By default RAMDisk GUI creates an NTFS formatted RAM disk However a user can always open Windows Disk Management and format that disk using FAT16 or FAT32 modify the partitions on the RAM disk You can modify the partition configuration of the RAM disk Windows Disk Management By saving and loading the RAM disk image on startup you can automatically start with the modified RAM disk since the disk image format overrides any other configuration settings Why doesn t the image file timestamp seem to be changing when have AutoSave turned on RAMDisk keeps track of write activity to the RAM disk and if there have been no writes since the last time the disk image was saved the disk image will not be written out again This saves on unnecessary hard disk I O and can make a big difference if you have a large disk image that changes infrequently Can I boot from RAMDisk No Since RAMDisk is a Windows resident program you can t load Windows from it However you can load a second OS instance from RAMDisk using a multi session tool such as VMWare In fact RAMDisk is often used with VMWare to increase its perform
10. if RAMDisk is still running This is the RAMDisk driver It is created and removed when the driver is started and stopped If the file is there it means the RAMDisk is running If it could not be found it has been successfully deleted If the driver remains delete it 5 f you are sure you no longer need them delete any RAMDisk img files you may have saved default location CARAMDisk img That s it 25 Support We value your feedback You can contact Dataram via the self service support center at www radeonramdisk com support and you can be assured that we will do our best to help you 26 4 Frequently Asked Questions Do you have a question that s not in the FAQ or have a suggestion for something that should be Visit the support center at www radeonramdisk com support 1 Canlrun RAMDisk 64 bit versions of Windows c cccceeeeteeeeeee cee eeeeaeeeeaeeseneeeseaeeesaeeneneeeeaes 27 2 Can format a RAMDisk 27 3 create non NTFS formatted RAM disk sse eene 28 4 modify the partitions on the RAM 415 28 5 Why doesn t the image file timestamp seem to be changing when have AutoSave turned on 28 6 Can boot from RAMDISK iiec eid eve i Eee d ER Ec eR e edu to dees ated 28 7 driver is started but do
11. image can be on any local drive However if you want an image to load at boot time the image must be located on the system drive Disk images cannot be loaded from network shared drives If the Driver fails to load an image file for whatever reason it falls back on the rest of the configured settings potentially giving you a formatted disk with Temp directory etc depending on your settings even though a perfectly good img file may exist Check for a moved or misplaced img file if this occurs Save Options These boxes allow you to configure the Save Disk Image at Shutdown feature which will automatically save the entire contents of the RAMDisk along with the associated Driver settings upon Shutdown If you enable a save option and do not have a load option enabled the RAMDisk GUI will automatically create the initial image file then update the settings to enable Load Disk Image at Startup This happens after the NTFS file system is created Save Disk Image On Shutdown Check this box to have RAMDisk save all the contents of the RAMDisk and the Driver settings to the img filename specified in the Image File field It is best to use this feature after you have your settings worked out the way you would like them Saving a img file with the RAMDisk set up correctly is a good idea but be careful not to accidentally overwrite your only good file when you shut down by using this option If an image file cannot be opened on sh
12. AMD Radeon RAMDisk User s Manual and FAQ RAMDISK Revision Tracker Revision Number Software Version Description Revision Date 04 V4 0 0 Initial Release October 2012 05 V4 1 x Version 4 1 x Update March 2013 06 V4 2 x Version 4 2 x Update June 2013 07 V4 3 x Version 4 3 x Update October 2013 08 V4 4 x Version 4 4 x Update December 2013 Table of Contents 1 Introduction to RAMD ISK iecit tenth e eU eaae dL aduentu Lena adde can 5 What is RAMDiSk qp 5 How does it o DELE 5 Whatis the benefit aA a aaan eden 5 2 Screen by screen definition of settings eene 7 Menus and Start Stop Buttons sssssssssssssseseeeee 7 Settings a e aa aan a a aaa a a aaas 9 Advanced Settings aa aaa siente aa eae aaa a a 15 Wero MEE 17 Bii 20 Options lo 21 8 Technical Know HOW eic 23 SWap Spa EUER 23 Huc 23 Systemi 24 Found New Hardware nnne t
13. MDisk to the system disk It is important to understand that this img file is not a standard disk image file but rather contains some geometry information specific to RAMDisk so you cannot use other software to create edit or save a img file even if the img file extension might lead you to believe you can Like any file the img file can become corrupted In fact since RAM is inherently volatile there is a risk of data loss or corruption any time power is lost or interrupted A corrupted RAMDisk can and will be saved to the img file either manually or automatically depending on your settings It is strongly advised that you keep any important information backed up on more than one img file Rotate your img file name from time to time or better yet use Windows backup to schedule periodic backups of the RAMDisk to a separate drive If your img file is lost or corrupted it cannot be restored unless you have a backup If RAMDisk is set to automatically load image at startup and that image is corrupted you will get a 24 AMD corrupted drive every time until you change the file name and or Stop and Restart the RAMDisk License Files RAMDisk is offered as freeware for use with disks up to 4GB in size If you have AMD memory installed in your system you will be able to use up to 6GB disk sizes If you purchase a license from Dataram you will receive a license file that will remove the advertisement window when you
14. With this option set the entire disk image in RAM will be overwritten with O s before the memory is returned to the operating system completely destroying the disk contents Do not start RAMDisk when Windows starts Choose this option to prevent RAMDisk from running automatically when Windows starts Allow Image File to be saved in non System Drive Choose this option to save the image file to a non System Drive Ideally the user should save the image file to System Drive This is so that the RAMDisk driver can load the image upon reboot if Auto Start on reboot is enabled If the image is saved on a non System Drive the RAMDisk driver may not be able to find the image from a non System Drive after a reboot 22 3 Technical Know Swap Space The term Swap space means A swap file or swap space or in Windows NT a page file is a space on a hard disk used as the virtual memory extension of a computer s real memory RAM Having a swap file allows your computer s operating system to pretend that you have more RAM than you actually do The least recently used files in RAM can be swapped out to your hard disk until they are needed later so that new files can be swapped in to RAM In larger operating systems such as IBM s OS 390 the units that are moved are called pages and the swapping is called paging TechTarget www whatis com You can see how confusion is bred by the multitude of terms used to identify S
15. ance The driver is started but don t see a drive letter for the RAM disk in My Computer This can occur if a saved image file is a disk Use the Windows Disk Management to assign a drive letter to the RAM disk Canluse a RAMDisk as a raw drive for a virtual machine VMWare or VirtualBox The answer is yes at least with VMWare Configure and start RAMDisk first with an unformatted disk image the start VMWare and configure the virtual machine for raw disk access If you stop and restart the RAMDisk you will need to reconfigure the virtual machine for raw access to the RAMDisk this is because some of the information kept in the vmdk file for raw disk access will not match after the RAMDisk is restarted After removing the old disk and reconfiguring for access to the RAMDisk the virtual machine will boot properly 28 AMD VirtualBox as of version 4 1 10r76795 will properly install to an unformatted RAMDisk However the virtual machine does not recognize the disk properly if the RAMDisk is stopped and then restarted with the disk image Reconfiguring a new vmdk to access the raw disk does not allow the RAMDisk to be recognized properly by VirtualBox This appears to be a limitation of the VirtualBox software 9 On RAMDisk application launch user gets error Unable to read hardware info Unexpected error 6 at line 123 Install latest version of RAMDisk 4 3 or 4 4 10 Why are disk size and other options graye
16. d out on first tab in 4 3 and 4 4 or Why can not change the disk size It means user is in Load existing RAMDisk image mode To enable all options on the first tab user has to enter create disk mode by enabling Create a New Disk or disabling the Load Disk Image at Startup option in the Load save tab 1 Error Code 2203 or 2205 on RAMDisk installation Set the TEMP and TMP environment variable to point to existing paths on the hard disk If these variables point to network or non existent paths it will result in error 2203 or 2205 during install 12 Where do 1 download the previous version from http www radeonmemory com files Radeon RAMDisk 4 3 0 RC1 msi 13 RAMDisk installer fails with message indicating absence of NET Framework 4 0 But framework 4 0 and above is already installed Try net framework repair http www microsoft com en us download details aspx id 30135 14 Even after uninstall Ramdisk continues to show in diskmgmt and uses up RAM 1 Uninstall ramdisk if not already done 2 Reboot 3 Run Regedit Navigate to HKEY LOCAL MACHINENSYSTEMNCurrentControlSet Services RAMDiskVE or RAMDIskXP 29 AMD 4 Delete RAMDIskVE or RAMDiskXP and all its subkeys from the registry Reboot 15 User manual and release notes do not load Adobe acrobat may not be installed Please install adobe acrobat and retry You can also launch the help and release notes by double clicking on the file at c progra
17. ge REG_DWORD 0x00000409 1033 4 Products a PackageCode CF5406B189224E143ABC6BBF907CC043 J 1007C6B46D7C017319E3B52CF3EC196E Psoductlcon NINDOWS Installer OF49277C 7868 47D7 9FB gt J 508C08D43C7652547AABCD3412E51976 jj ib fdu C77294F086877D74F9CB6EC2BCBCF13A REG_DWORD 0404020000 67239936 gt jy CFD2C1F142D260E3CB8B271543DA9F98 p gt UpgradeCodes bj Win32Assemblies gt Interface b i Internet HHCtrl Internet HHCtrl 1 B InternetExplorer Application Jo InternetExplorer Application 1 InternetShortcut ITIR EngStemmer gt J ITIR EngStemmer 4 gt ITIR IndexSearch b gt 17 Troubleshooting 1 Installation issue If you are unable to install RAMDisk please create a support ticket and provide the installer log Instructions to create the installer log a Run command prompt as administrator This is done by clicking start all programs accessories Then right click command prompt and choose run as administrator b save RAMDisk 4 4 0 RC msi in c test c in the command prompt window go to c test and type this command msiexec i RAMDisk_4 4 0 RC msi I v MyLogFile txt and hit enter d When the install is done copy the mylogfile txt and send it to us 2 For all other issues 32 Create a support ticket and attach support information zip created by using menu help Create support information
18. ironment variables TEMP and TMP then keep in mind that many applications will use this space including applications and applications installation programs In particular if an application installation program expects to write files to the system TEMP directory and then expects those files to be present after a reboot to complete the installation and you are not saving and restoring the disk on reboot the application installer will fail and may leave your system in an unstable state In addition if the RAMDisk is too small the TEMP directory may fill up Many applications do not handle a full TEMP directory gracefully System Restore IMPORTANT Windows system restore may shut down if you enable it on a RAMDisk It appears that since the disk is too small or too transient to include system restore information Windows can stop creating system restore points for all drives FIX You have to go into your system restore settings and disable system restore on the RAMDisk Found New Hardware Message If you see this message after installing RAMDisk something has gone wrong The RAMDisk driver is installed during setup so Windows does not need to find a driver later If this happens please use the uninstaller to remove RAMDisk check the web site for any updates and re install If you have a corrupt install file you may need to re download See also Installing below Disk Images RAMDisk can save and load the entire contents of the RA
19. m can be recovered by booting into Safe Mode and stopping the RAMDisk driver This issue has been fixed in the latest version of the Acronis SnapAPI drivers Version 586 The version 586 drivers can be downloaded from Acronis at https kb acronis com sites default files content 2010 10 15097 snapapisetup The Acronis Knowledge Base article with full information on this issue is at http kb acronis com content 15097 5 When you try to run the configuration tool you get an error message Automation Error 80041010 This can occur when objects in the system WMI 34 AMD repository are either missing or corrupt You can rebuild the repository by issuing the following commands from a command prompt with Administrator privileges net stop winmgmt y cd windir Nsystem32Nwbem rename repository repository old net start winmgmt When you issue the net stop command the system will also stop dependent Services so you may see messages about other services being stopped If this is the case it would be best to reboot after this procedure to insure that all system services are properly restarted After this you should be able to start the RAMDisk configuration tool without error 6 The software Unlock from Gigabyte is incompatible with RAMDisk and will cause a BSOD when both are enabled http www gigabyte com microsite 276 3tb html Dataram is currently working with Gigabyte to resolve this problem
20. m files x86 ramdiskAMD Radeon RAMDisk Release Notes and c program files x86 ramdisk AMD Radeon RAMDisk User Manual 16 Cannot uninstall ramdisk on windows 8 1 This occurs only if you have old versions of RAMDisk prior to 4 3 Customers upgrading from windows 8 to windows 8 1 are requested to uninstall their old RAMDisk software from windows 8 before upgrading to windows 8 1 You only need to do this if you have a version of RAMDisk that is older than 4 3 Customers with RAMDisk 4 3 and subsequent versions will not have this problem If they have not uninstalled RAMDisk before windows upgrade then they should Request patch to uninstall their old RAMDisk from windows 8 1 If patch fails use step 1 amp step 2 to manually uninstall RAMDisk from windows 8 1 Step 1 Run regedit exe on your computer and navigate to IHKEY LOCAL MACHINENSOFTWAREMIcrosoftWindows CurrentVersionMnst allenUserData S 1 5 18 Products You should see something similar to the attached image step1 If S 1 5 18 is not present something similar should be there under userData Under Products you should see one item 01EA3EA186A505444ABA7E966648BE86 whose installproperties is Radeon Ramdisk You have to delete that specific product 01EA3EA186A505444ABA7E966648BE86 These numbers may not match Just that one and its subkeys will be automatically deleted Do not delete the entire products Step 2 30 regedit exe
21. n image file when RAMDisk is stopped either through the GUI or by shutting down your computer You can also use this setting temporarily to create an initial image file Save them as they occur PAID Version only with this option RAMDisk will continuously update the image file as changes occur This happens in the background and does not interfere with the performance of the RAMDisk 13 AMD Save Image Storelmageat CARAMDisk img Browse If you chose to save your changes and did not choose to load an image file you will be given the opportunity to set the image file name For best results this image should be saved on the system drive When RAMDisk is started in this configuration it will create the initial file system Once the initial image file is created RAMDisk will update the start mode to load that image next time If you do not want to save any further changes to the image you can turn off the save option at this time and save the settings through the File menu This change will take effect immediately 14 Advanced Settings Tab Using create Mode a new RAM Disk can be created if Create has been selected in the Load Save tab AMD Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility Settings Load Save Event Log Options Basic Settings Set the size of RAMDisk you want to create Disk Size 10 MB Max 3188 MB RAMDISK Format Options RADEON Create TEMP Directory i AMDA Set Di
22. n t see a drive letter for the RAM disk in My Computer 28 8 Can I use a RAMDisk as raw drive for a virtual machine VMWare or VirtualBox 28 9 RAMDisk application launch user gets error Unable to read hardware info Unexpected error 6 cup 29 10 Why are disk size and other options grayed out on first tab in 4 3 and 4 4 29 Why can I not change the disk size tape Cen SLE pa Fede n E taeda 29 11 Error Code 2203 or 2205 on RAMDisk installation essssseeeeeeeenenen nnn 29 12 Where do download the previous version from ssssssssssseeeeeeeeeneeneen nnns 29 13 RAMDisk installer fails with message indicating absence of NET Framework 4 0 But framework 4 0 and above is already enne nnne nennen 29 14 Even after uninstall Ramdisk continues to show in diskmgmt and uses up RAM 29 15 User manual and release notes do not load eee 30 16 Cannot uninstall ramdisk on windows 8 1 1 enne 30 17 Troubleshooting 32 1 Can I RAMDisk on 64 bit versions of Windows YES RAMDisk supports 64 bit versions of Windows Vista Windows 7 Windows 8 and Windows
23. nfiguration tool will shut down the driver The timeout value is typically set by the driver based on the disk size but you can override the default values and set them manually from this tab Do not create backup file when saving disk image Ordinarily RAMDisk will not overwrite an existing disk image file but will move it to a file with a bak extension This is an additional data safety measure in case an image file should become corrupted Selecting this option will disable the creation of a backup file While this saves disk space it can risk the safety of your data Because Background Update continuously updates the image file in place this option is forced on when Background Update is enabled 21 AMD Do not compress image file on NTFS file systems Image files are saved as compressed files by default when the image is saved to an NTFS file system This can provide significant reduction in file size as well as greatly improved load times for large images Selecting this option will cause the image file to be saved uncompressed NOTE NTFS compression is only supported for files SOGB in size This option should be selected for disks 30GB and larger Clear RAMDisk memory on exit Ordinarily when RAMDisk exits the disk memory is returned to the operating system The disk data is still intact and in principle it could be possible to extract the original disk data if the memory is not allocated for another use and overwritten
24. nne enne sn nennen 29 3 AMD 11 Error Code 2203 or 2205 on RAMDisk installation 29 12 Where do download the previous version from ssssssssssseeeeeeennen 29 13 RAMDisk installer fails with message indicating absence of NET Framework 4 0 But framework 4 0 and above is already installed sssssseeeenee enne 29 14 Even after uninstall Ramdisk continues to show in diskmgmt and uses up 29 15 User manual and release notes do not load 30 16 Cannot uninstall ramdisk on windows 8 1 4 nnne 30 17 Troubleshootlrg idee tu Co eda 32 De KNOWMISSUCS iit 34 1 Introduction to RAMDISK What is RAMDisk RAMDisk is a program that takes a portion of your system memory and uses it as a disk drive Conceptually turning your memory into a usable disk drive may appear simple but in practice there are many complex variables to deal with when operating a RAMDisk in Windows This software is designed to be user friendly no matter what your PC knowledge may be Improvements will continue to be made to ensure new builds remain as easy as possible for end users Regular software updates will be provided to improve features and address customer requests
25. or Cancel exit the GUI and reboot Be sure you do not have RAMDisk set to Load Disk Image at Startup unless you are sure the img file selected is the one you want loaded After rebooting you should be able to start the RAMDisk with your selected settings Depending on your settings once the RAMDisk Driver is started it will stay running even through reboots It will only stop when configured to do so or signaled to do so by hitting the Stop button The Driver captures load and save img filenames and other settings from the GUI at the time of Start It is important to note that in order to change major settings like disk size you will have to stop the Driver and restart If you make major changes to the settings while the Driver is running you will be prompted to stop the Driver before the settings will take effect Some settings such as the save options can be changed while RAMDisk is running Stop RAMDisk Pressing this button will dismount the RAM disk volume and stop the RAM disk driver returning the memory used for the RAM disk to Windows In order for the driver to unload successfully there can be no open files on the RAM disk and Windows Explorer should not be displaying the contents of your RAM disk In some cases other software or utilities will be accessing the drive in the background In those cases it may not be obvious what is accessing the drive and a reboot will be required to stop the RAMDisk If you are using
26. ou can Save Settings Saves your configuration settings Restore Default Settings Restores the default settings in case you need to get back to a known good state Restore Last Saved PAID Version only Restores the settings you had last saved Restore Active Settings PAID Version only Restores the settings from the current running configuration Save Disk Image Now Write a disk image immediately to a specified filename 7 AMD Exit Exits the GUI but does not affect the Driver Only Start and Stop will actually create or delete the RAMDisk View Under this menu item you can select Advanced Choose between a simplified settings view and an advanced view with more options Purchase Under this menu item you can Buy Now This will take you to Dataram s web site the creators of RAMDisk to allow the purchase of a license key for the full version of RAMDisk no 4 6 GB limit no pop under reminders Once the software license is purchased and successfully unlocked this menu option will no longer appear unless there is a special promotion available Enter License Key After you purchase a license from the Dataram web site you will be issued a 16 digit code that can be entered by selecting this option Once the code is entered successfully the software will be unlocked and this menu option will no longer appear A license key is good for ONE computer Please be sure to enter the license key on the machine you wish to acti
27. pear or disappear as needed Startup Behavior When I click start create new NTFS disk and assign it drive Z This setting selects how RAMDisk behaves when you start it from the GUI Your choices are Create a new NTFS disk RAMDisk will create a new disk image formatted with the NTFS file system and using the selected drive letter 11 AMD Load a saved image RAMDisk will load an existing disk image at startup If there has been a change to disk size or other disk format options the existing image cannot be loaded You will be asked if you want to create a new RAM Disk by overwriting the existing image New Image Size using 40 ofthe maximum 1446 Megabytes If you chose to create a new image use this field to set the disk size You are shown the maximum possible disk size based on the addressable memory in your system You should normally choose a smaller value to leave plenty of room for your programs working memory See the guidelines in the Advanced Settings Tab section for more information Load Image from CARAMDisk img Browse Sizeis 200 MB If you chose to load an existing image use this field to set the path to the image file The image should be located on the system boot drive in order to ensure that the drive is loaded early enough in the boot process If the image file is valid you will be shown the size of the RAMDisk that will be created 12 AMD Label and TEMP Directory
28. rennen 24 Disk Imagis M M 24 License dnd 25 25 25 SUPPOM 26 4 Frequently Asked QUSSIIORS ceteri ht nne eod re ee Las 27 1 Canlrun RAMDisk 64 bit versions of Windows sssssssssseseseeeeeeeeen nene 27 2 Canlformat a RAMDisk 27 3 Howdolcreate a non NTFS formatted RAM disk ssssssssseeeeeeeen nens 28 4 modify the partitions on the RAM disk sssssssssssseeeneenneeen nennen enne 28 5 Why doesn t the image file timestamp seem to be changing when have AutoSave turned on 28 6 Canil boot from Eo tenere entree ance asec aaa bnt tee Pede 28 7 driver is started but don t see a drive letter for the RAM disk in My Computer 28 8 Can I use a RAMDisk as raw drive for a virtual machine VMWare or VirtualBox 28 9 OnRANDisk application launch user gets error Unable to read hardware info Unexpected error Gat line PA ur 29 10 Why are disk size and other options grayed out on first tab in 4 3 and 4 4 29 Why can not change the disk size n
29. riables TEMP and TMP then keep in mind that many applications will use this space including applications and applications installation programs In particular if an application installation program expects to write files to the system TEMP directory and then expects those files to be present after a reboot to complete the installation and you are not saving and restoring the disk on reboot the application installer will fail and may leave your system in an unstable state In addition if the RAMDisk is too small the TEMP directory may fill up Many applications do not handle a full TEMP directory gracefully Disk Label Selecting this option will allow you to specify an 11 character disk label for the RAMDisk drive This label will be created each time the RAMDisk is started This option is not available if you have selected Load Disk Image at Startup 16 Load Save Tab File View Help Settings Load Save Event Log Options Image File to use for New Disk or to Load existing image C RAMDisk img Load Options Save Options Q Create a new disk 4 Save Disk Image at Shutdown RADEON RAMDISK Load the specified saved image Background Update AMDA Load Options This box allows you to configure the Load Disk Image at Startup feature which will automatically start the Driver with the saved img file and associated settings Create a New Disk
30. s with high I O high bandwidth or high security requirements Some users like the security of the RAMDisk because if you do not choose to back up the RAMDisk all information will be wiped upon power loss or shutdown Since RAM cannot store any trace of information without power you know the information is gone for good not just hidden on a track of a hard drive that can be easily undeleted and even recovered after successive over writes An additional feature of a RAMDisk is that it will never wear out You can access it at maximum bandwidth 24 7 365 without fear of mechanical failure or fragmentation a RAMDisk can become fragmented just like any other disk but it does not take a performance hit like a physical disk does when it becomes fragmented A RAMDisk operating at maximum bandwidth does not produce excessive heat noise or vibrations 2 Screen by screen definition of settings Menus and Start Stop Buttons File View Help Settings Event Log When I click start create a new disk and assign it drive Storelmageat CARAMDisk img Browse using 40 ofthe maximum 3188 Megabytes Leave it unlabeled and create a TEMP directory When I make changes to the files on the disk do not v AMDA RADEON Start RAMDisk The menu items the Start RAMDisk and the Stop RAMDisk buttons are available from all tabs in the GUI File Under this menu item y
31. sages Type Date Time Source RADEON RAMDISK AMDA Scan System Log Start RAMDisk Scan System Log This button will scan the last 1 000 entries of your Windows event log and display any RAMDisk related items The entries displayed can be double clicked to pull up the full event message This is a handy feature for understanding why your disk may have failed to start or stop 20 Options Tab 4 AMD Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility N Eile View Upgrade Help Settings Load Save Event Log Options Manually set RAMDisk timeout value Time to wait for RAMDisk to initialize 60 seconds Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystems mm Clear RAMDisk memory on exit AMDA Do not start RAMDisk when Windows starts Allow Image file to be saved in System Drives Start RAMDisk The Options tab allows you to configure some of the less commonly used RAMDisk options Manually set RAMDisk timeout value This setting allows you to configure the timeout value the configuration tool will use when starting the driver When you start RAMDisk the configuration tool waits for the driver to start and communicates with the driver to make certain that the memory requested for the disk was available If the driver does not start in the allocated time or signals an error condition the co
32. sk Label Drive RAMDisk 15 AMD When using load existing image Mode an existing image is used when RAM Disk is started However if you change any disk setting before RAM Disk Start a new image will have to be created in order to use the new settings To change the mode go to Load Save tab and change the load option Disk Size The amount of memory reserved by RAMDisk for the OS is 1 GB Therefore the maximum size RAMDisk you can create Installed RAM 1 GB Since you are using up some amount of your main memory to create a RAMDisk you need to be sure to leave enough memory for your applications If you create too large of a RAMDisk you may actually slow down your applications We recommend 4096 MB for your OS and applications especially if you play games or use memory intensive applications Tip You can check your memory allocation in Windows Task Manager if you want to see how your computer is using memory before and after you start RAMDisk The GUI automatically uses NTFS as the file system type for the RAMDisk Create TEMP Directory This option will create a TEMP directory in the RAM disk when it is started This option is not available if you have selected Load Disk Image at Startup on the Load Save tab This option is useful if you want to locate your temporary files directory on the RAMDisk disk If you use the RAMDisk as the system TEMP directory by changing the system environment va
33. start the configuration tool and allow RAM disks larger than 4 6GB To purchase the software visit http www radeonmemory com xtreme key index php Installing Be sure to install with Administrator privileges Also you should not get any errors on installation aside from any Microsoft warnings about unsigned drivers or Windows logo software warnings depending on your security settings If you do you may have a corrupt download Try re downloading If you continue to have trouble installing try disabling your anti virus software Be sure to re enable it after you install Be sure your file comes from Dataram Don t use files from other download sites Uninstalling Be sure to STOP the RAMDisk before you uninstall If you get a message stating that RAMDisk could not stop Reboot Verify the disk is stopped the Stop button will be grey and the disk will no longer appear in My Computer You may then proceed with the uninstall If for some reason you are unable to complete an automated uninstall you can uninstall manually using the following steps 1 STOP the RAMDisk If you get a message stating that RAMDisk was unable to stop reboot 2 Exit the GUI 3 Delete the program directory C Program Files Radeon RAMDisk C Program Files x86 Radeon RAMDisk in 64 bit Windows versions This is the GUI directory 4 Search your computer for the file RAMDiskVE sys It should be in your root drive system32 driver directory
34. stem Compression of the image file can be disabled in the Options tab Background Update PAID Version only This option greatly reduces time to shut down RAMDisk by keeping the RAMDisk backed up continuously This is also great for data protection as the RAMDisk img file is as up to date as possible at any given time Save Disk Image Now This button can be used to write a disk image immediately to a specified filename Normally when the driver starts it locks in load save filenames set in the GUI at the time of the start Pressing the Save Disk Image Now button displays a popup that allows you to save an image to any local disk The default location is the file selected in the Filename box but you can select any location on a local disk This does not override the Save Disk Image on Shutdown filename locked in when the Driver was started You will need to stop the Driver and restart it to change the Filename registered by the Driver If the specified image file exists it is renamed with a bak extension and is not overwritten unless this feature was disabled when the driver was loaded see the Options tab Disk images cannot be saved to network shared drives This button can be used to save a disk image even when the other save options are disabled This function is also available from the File menu 19 Event Log Tab File Purchase Help Settings Load Save Eventlog Options RAMDisk System Event Log Mes
35. utdown no image file will be created and a message will be sent to the Event Log If there is insufficient disk space in the specified path the output file will be truncated For RAMDisks that you start and stop within a session without a reboot the disk image can be on any local drive While you can save an image on shutdown to any local drive if you want an image to load at boot the image must be located on the system drive Disk images cannot be loaded from or saved to network shared drives If the specified image file exists it is renamed with a bak extension and is not overwritten unless this feature is disabled see the Options tab Saving a disk image at shutdown may take several minutes especially for disks gt 1GB so be patient If you reset the system before the disk image save is complete the disk image may be corrupted or lost completely If you use Background Update the shutdown time should be substantially reduced When saving a disk image to an NTFS file system the RAMDisk driver automatically enables compression on the image file This can be a significant savings in space as 18 AMD well as greatly improve image save and load times Additionally if you have Windows 7 or later and format the RAMDisk as NTFS space used by deleted files will be reclaimed allowing the space used by the image file to shrink when data is deleted from the RAMDisk For best performance locate your image file on an NTFS file sy
36. vate Please note If you have version 4 3 or older of RAMDisk and you wipe your hard drive you may need to obtain a new license file Please contact customer support to obtain one Help Under this menu item you can User s Manual Opens this document Release Notes Opens a document to show the Release Notes Support Center Takes you to Dataram s technical support web site AMD Website Takes you directly to the AMD Radeon RAMDisk homepage Collect Support Information This option collects information about your system configuration and your RAMDisk installation and saves it in a ZIP file on your Desktop This information is valuable to our support team to help diagnose any support issues None of the RAMDisk contents are collected in this file About View version and registration information and get a link to AMD and Dataram home pages AMD Start RAMDisk Pressing this button will start the RAM disk driver creating a new RAMDisk Be sure you have the settings correct for your system before you hit Start RAMDisk If you are in doubt go to File gt Restore Default Settings Asa precaution the Start RAMDisk button will stop any currently running RAMDisk before attempting to start a new one If you have changed any of the RAM disk settings you will be prompted to save the current settings before starting the disk In some cases you will get a message informing you to reboot in order to start the RAMDisk Simply hit OK
37. wap Space Here is what you need to know RAMDisk can never be larger than the actual RAM you have installed on your system Some users think that because they have a large virtual memory it will allow them to make a large RAMDisk Users have also attempted to assign a RAMDisk as the hard disk to which Windows will begin swapping data when it runs out of RAM You can assign the Windows swap file to the RAMDisk but keep in mind that taking too much memory away from Windows can cause it to swap more and if you are not careful the result can reduce performance Temp Files There are many kinds of Temp files and folders in Windows There is a Temp directory that Windows will use to store files for IE cache Windows Update scratch files and other stuff like WinZip scratch space etc In general we will refer to any file that is not important enough to back up a Temp file This is an ideal kind of file folder for RAMDisk to store since the data is not important to preserve after initial use in most cases Many users like to assign their temporary internet folder to the RAM Drive You have two important options to consider when doing this 1 Do save my data on shutdown or 2 do want it gone for good If you want faster surfing you should save on shutdown If you want absolute security for your web usage you should not save on shutdown 23 If you use the RAMDisk as the system TEMP directory by changing the system env
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