AMD Radeon™ RAMDisk User`s Manual and FAQ
Contents
1. Up to 4GB or 4096MB FAT 32 Unformatted penc e with O S Up to 10GB or 10240MB FAT 32 Unformatted 2GB Up to 12GB or 12288MB FAT 32 Unformatted Up to 20GB or 20480MB FAT 32 Unformatted Up to 40GB or 40960MB FAT 32 Unformatted 12GB System RAM The Amount of installed memory Recommended RAM Drive Size The size of RAMdisk that should be created based on installed memory Format Pre formatted partition that allows you to see your disk immediately FAT 16 can be chosen however it will not allow a RAMdisk larger than 4GB RAM Cache The amount of RAM that should be set aside to handle unforeseen temp files O S RAM The amount of RAM that should be set aside to ensure that the Operating System is fully supported properly AMD The amount of memory reserved by RAMDisk for the OS is 512 MB Therefore the maximum size RAMDisk you can create Installed RAM 512 MB 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 FAT16 Partition You can have RAMDisk create a pre formatted partition on the RAMDisk when it starts This will allow you to see the disk immediately in My Computer without having to manually format and partition the RAMDisk FAT16 is the simplest file system and is used for very small disks It is DOS compa2. 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 shutdown 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 When saving a disk image to an NTFS filesystem the RAMDisk driver automatically enables compression on the image file This can be a significant savings in space as well as greatly improve image save and load times For best performance locate your image file on
3. formatting information and therefore no drive letter 19 AMD 7 Why doesn t the image file timestamp seem to be changing when I 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 8 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 performance 9 The driver is started but I don t see a drive letter for the RAM disk in My Computer Use the Windows Disk Management to assign a drive letter to the RAM disk 10 Canl use 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 recon
4. 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 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 14 AMD 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 yo
5. of Windows Vista Windows 7 and Windows 8 2 Can 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 3 How dol create an NTFS formatted RAM disk Since much of the NTFS structure is undocumented by Microsoft RAMDisk does not support creating an NTFS formatted disk explicitly there is no NTFS button like there is for FAT 16 and FAT 32 However you can format a RAM disk using the NTFS file system by using Windows Disk Management By saving and loading the RAM disk image on startup you can automatically start with an NTFS formatted RAM disk since the disk image format overrides any other configuration settings RAMDisk does not support dynamic disks Since Windows likes to keep track of dynamic disks it gets upset when one is missing like every time 18 AMD you shut down a RAMDisk When prompted it is best to set RAMDisk to basic disk type 4 Can 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 5 How dol create a bootable disk image You can use RAMDisk to create a bootable di
6. 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 3TB 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 Copyright 2008 2012 Dataram Inc RAMDisk is a Dataram product AMD brand technology names and logos used under license from Advanced Micro Devices Inc 22
7. 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 It is highly recommended that all users READ THE INSTRUCTIONS this document before trying the various RAMDisk settings The below chart breaks out the different RAMDisk configurations that will be supported by AMD AMD Radeon RAMDisk AMD Radeon RAMDisk AMD Radeon RAMDisk Xtreme ACD cnND x MN emory Manufacturer All AMD memory only All RAMdisk Capacity Up to 4GB or 4096MB Up to 6GB or 6144MB Up to 64GB or 65536MB Platform Compatibility Intel or AMD Intel or AMD Intel or AMD Operating System Windows 8 7 Vista Windows 8 7 Vista Windows 8 7 Vista nstalled System Memory Minimum 4GB Recommended Minimum 4GB Recommended Minimum 4GB Recommended Software Typ Freeware Freeware Purchase and license 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 Kerne
8. AMD Radeon RAMDisk User s Manual and FAQ RADEON RAMDISK AMDA AMD Revision Tracker AMD Revision Number Software Version Description Revision Date 03 V4 0 1 Initial Release October 2012 AMD Contents 1 Introduction t RAMDISK M ia 3 What iS RAMDISK Zocor rere eee oe eee AEE SA E EEE E ee ee 3 How does it o M 3 4417 8781 101 0 1 7 gp 4 2 Screen by screen definition of settings eee essere netten nne 5 Settings TaD HL 5 Load And Sav VAD e t 8 Event Log Tab R E GM MEUM nM Im AN Re IE 11 Options VAD ace ER 12 3 Technical Know HOW ec eeceeccsseeeeeeseeseecneeeeecaesaeeeaecseessecsaessecnaeseeseaeceeeeseceaeeseesaeeeecseeeeesnaeeatenaeeas 14 SWAP Spa C cise UI e 14 emt E 14 Systemi i re neni ctl rh EEEE EEEE EN la adore ota 15 Found New Hardware message sess nne teneret nns et snis nn ttti 15 IBI eLe jg e M 15 lel el giclee Lo Mew eet e 16 hisce PET 16 BIEN 16 SUPPO em PERIERE 17 4 Frequently Asked QUOS passio Viv pss Ra Sa REUNIR MEI M ubl EK YU bit QUUM aaa 18 D KNOWN ISSUES Lm 21 AMD 1 Introduction to RAMDISK What is RAMDisk RAMDisk is a program that takes a portion of
9. MDisk 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 C RAMDisk img That s it 16 AMD 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 17 AMD 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 Can run RAMDisk on 64 bit versions of Windows Can format a RAMDisk drive How do create an NTFS formatted RAM disk Can modify the partitions on the RAM disk How do create a bootable disk image How do set the drive letter for the RAM disk Why doesn t the image file timestamp seem to be changing when have AutoSave turned on Can boot from RAMDisk The driver is started but don t see a drive letter in My Computer 10 Can use a RAMDisk as a raw drive for a virtual machine VMWare or VirtualBox Soy Uc m Seo 9 lt 1 Can I run RAMDisk on 64 bit versions of Windows YES RAMDisk supports 64 bit versions
10. an NTFS filesystem Compression of the image file can be disabled in the Options tab AutoSave Check this box to have RAMDisk Save all the contents of the RAMDisk to the img filename that was specified in the Filename field locked in when the driver was started at the specified interval The minimum time interval is 300 seconds This interval is used to control a timer and when this timer expires the system will check to see if the RAMDisk disk has been written to If it has the entire current disk image will be saved to the disk file specified in the Filename field Use caution with this setting you can keep a hard drive very busy with a large enough RAMDisk and a short time interval thus negatively impacting your system performance 10 AMD 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
11. at 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 AMD 2 Screen by screen definition of settings Settings Tab AMD Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility File Purchase Help Settings Load Save Event Log Options Basic Settings Set the size and type of RAMDisk you want to create FAT16 Partition A C FAT32 Partition Disksize 40 MB C Unformatted Maximum 1406 MB aliai RAMDISK AMDA Boot Sector Settings Windows boot sector C DOS Boot Sector 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 File Under this menu item you 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 Exit Exits the GUI but does not affect the Driver Only Start and Stop will actually create or delete the RAMDisk AMD Purchase Under this menu item y
12. 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 Event Log Tab AMD Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility File Purchase Help Settings Load Save Event Lc RAMDisk System Event Log Messages Type Date Time Source pum RAMDISK AMDA Scan System Log Start RAMDisk 11 AMD 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 Options Tab P AMD Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility File Purchase Help Manually set RAMDisk timeout value Time to wait for RAMDisk to initialize 60 seconds Do not create backup file when saving disk image RADEON RAMDISK l Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystems AMDA f Clear RAMDisk memory on exit Start RAMDisk M 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 con
13. figuration 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 configuration 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 12 AMD 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 Do not compress image file on NTFS filesystems Image files are saved as compressed files by default when the image is saved to an NTFS filesystem 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 30GB 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 t
14. figuring for access to the RAMDisk the virtual machine will boot properly 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 20 AMD 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 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 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
15. ile for a bootable hard disk or CD Some people see this setting and assume RAMDisk is bootable unfortunately you cannot boot from RAMDisk Load Save Tab P AMD Radeon RAMDisk Configuration Utility File Purchase Help Load Image Settings Load Disk Image at Startup Create TEMP directory Filename Disk Label CARAMDisk img uw RAMDisk Save Image Settings neos RAMDISK Save DiskImage on Shutdown E AutoSave 300 E seconds AMDZ Filename CARAMDisk img Save Disk Image Now Start RAMDisk Stop RAMDICK m Load Image Settings These boxes allow you to configure the Load Disk Image at Startup feature which will automatically start the Driver with the saved img file and associated settings AMD Load Disk Image at Startup Check this box to have the img file shown in the Filename box loaded automatically when RAMDisk starts It is 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 It is best to use this feature after you have your settings worked out the way you would like them It is important to unde
16. ime 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 corrupted drive every time until you change the file name and or Stop and Restart the RAMDisk Since RAMDisk can only access image files through kernel file system I O large disk image files take a long time to back up and restore A 3045 MB disk image file may take up to several minutes to load and save If you have a very large disk image file you must plan on much longer boot and shutdown times In practical use the largest disk 15 AMD files are more efficiently backed up by Microsoft backup or other 3rd party backup utilities 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 start the configuration to
17. l 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 it for you AMD Upon successful start of the RAMDisk a kernel level driver RAMDisk 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 Databases e Internet Explorer cache for faster web surfing e Audio and Video editing e CAD programs e Software compilers e Speeding up CD duplication e Games e SETI processing e TEMP files e Swap space Web server cache e Custom applications 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 th
18. o extract the original disk data if the memory is not allocated for another use and overwritten With this option set the entire disk image in RAM will be overwritten with 0 s before the memory is returned to the operating system completely destroying the disk contents 13 AMD 3 Technical Know How 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 Swap 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
19. ol and allow RAM disks larger than 4 6GB To purchase the software visit www radeonramdisk com xtreme 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 RAMDisk sys It should be in your root drive system32 driver directory if RAMDisk is still running This is the RA
20. ou 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 activate Please note If 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 Support Center Takes you to Dataram s technical support web site AMD Website Takes you directly to the AMD Radeon RAMDisk homepage About View version and registration information and get a link to AMD and Dataram home pages Disk Size The below chart provides a recommendation of the size of RAMDisk you should create based on the amount of system RAM installed System RAM Recommended RAM Drive Format RAM CACHE O S RAM SIZE Up to 1GB or 1024MB FAT 32 Shared with O S Up to 2GB or 2048MB FAT 32 Shared with O S
21. re 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 Once the RAMDisk Driver is started it will stay running even through reboots It will only stop when 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 these settings you will have to stop the Driver and restart If you make changes to the settings while the Driver is running you will be prompted to stop the Driver before the settings will take effect 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 AMD 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 If you are using Background Update or Auto Save 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 Boot Sector Settings You can select DOS or Windows boot settings These settings are only used when using RAMDisk as a master image f
22. rstand that once the RAMDisk driver is running it continues to run even through reboots regardless of your settings in the Load Disk Image on Startup checkbox This setting simply tells 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 image can be on any local drive However if you want an image to load at boot 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 Loading a disk image when the driver starts at boot may take several minutes especially for disks gt 1GB so be patient Create TEMP directory This option will create a TEMP directory in the RAM disk when itis started If you have selected an Unformatted disk on the Settings tab this option will not be available This option is also not available if you have selected Load Disk Image at Startup This option is useful if you want to locate your temporary files directory on the RAMDisk di
23. sk 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 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 If you have selected an Unformatted disk on the Settings tab this option will not be AMD available This option is also not available if you have selected Load Disk Image at Startup Save Image Settings 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 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 Filename
24. sk image The following example will create a disk image that can be used to create a bootable CD ROM This simple example will just load the XP bootstrap and can be used to start your XP installation To begin with start RAMDisk with the Windows Boot Sector option enabled under the Settings tab Go to the root directory of your XP system disk and do the following assuming r is your RAM disk attrib r s h ntldr copy ntldr r attrib r s h ntldr attrib r s h boot ini copy boot ini r attrib r s h boot ini attrib r s h ntdetect com copy ntdetect com r attrib r s th ntdetect com This will install the basic files necessary to bootstrap Windows NT 2000 XP For more information see the Windows NT Workstation 4 0 Resource Kit p 697 Save the disk image You now have an image suitable for creating a bootable CD ROM 6 How dol set the drive letter for the RAM disk You can modify the drive letter using Windows Disk Management If you do not use Windows Disk Management Windows will automatically assign the next available drive letter to your RAMDisk If you want a specific drive letter to appear each time you run RAMDisk you will need to save the disk image at some point and select load disk image on startup Otherwise Windows does not know what drive letter you have created and will assign the next available drive letter Of course selecting Unformatted on the Settings tab will create a blank disk with no
25. 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 system 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 snapapisetup5 D5 zip 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 repository are either missing or corrupt You can rebuild the repository by issuing the following commands from a command prompt with Administrator privileges 21 AMD 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
26. tible FAT32 Partition You can have RAMDisk create a pre formatted partition on the RAMDisk when it starts For disks greater than 32MB in size FAT32 formatting can be selected Note that this results in a greatly reduced cluster size 5kB for disks smaller than 260MB and is much more efficient for disks that store a lot of small files Unformatted This setting creates an empty RAM disk without any partitions You will not see this disk in My Computer until you format it with Windows Disk Management Note that if a disk image file is loaded these settings will not be applied and the disk configuration will be the configuration of the saved image This is the best option to choose if you want to add the file system of your choice manually 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 or Cancel exit the GUI and reboot Be sure you do not have RAMDisk set to Load Disk Image at Startup unless you a
27. ur 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 RAMDisk 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 t
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