RAM Disk

[Guest]

I have noticed that Windows XP and 2003 come with a RAM Disk driver. I have
installed the Windows RAM Disk Controller and the Windows RAM Disk Device
(Volume) but I don't seem to have created a RAM disk. I have looked at
KB257405 which gives the Windows 2000 sample RAM Disk driver and used these
registry settings with no sucess.

Can someone please tell me how to get the RAM Disk driver working with
Windows XP and 2003 or tell me that it is not possible to get this driver
working. I know that there are a number of free / commercial RAM Disks on
the market, however I'd rath stick to a driver that is built into Windows.

 

[S.Sengupta]

" RAMDisk " for Windows 2000 / Windows XP / Windows Server 2003

http://www.ramdisk.tk/

http://www.tweakxp.com/article37232.aspx

regards,
S.Sengupta[MS-MVP]

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I have noticed that Windows XP and 2003 come with a RAM Disk driver. I
have installed the Windows RAM Disk Controller and the Windows RAM Disk
Device (Volume) but I don't seem to have created a RAM disk.

Same here. Although I managed to setup that specific RAM Disk, it
vanished at next reboot.

I have looked at KB257405 which gives the Windows 2000 sample RAM Disk
driver and used these registry settings with no sucess.

No problem here. Excerpt from that article:
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.

When following this advice, all System Restore points disappear while
Windows is trying to create the folder "Recycled" on that FAT drive.
Therefore, the MSKB content manager had been advised to incorporate
this addendum (excerpt):

| Warning Installing Ramdisk in Windows XP may render the System Restore
| feature useless.

I changed that particular code in PNP.C in order to create a RAM Disk
appearing as a *removable* media (w/o recycle bin):

status = IoCreateDevice(
DriverObject,
sizeof(DEVICE_EXTENSION),
&uniDeviceName,
FILE_DEVICE_DISK,
FILE_REMOVABLE_MEDIA|FILE_DEVICE_SECURE_OPEN,
FALSE,
&functionDeviceObject
);

After recompiling that driver, it works perfectly. Also, you can assign
the drive letter B: after this change which is unused in most cases.
Although that RAM Disk size is limited to 32 MB by default, it's good
enough to keep the Browser's temporary Internet Files (IE, Netscape,
Firefox) as well as the Printer spooler directory for instance.

 

[Guest]

WHY do you want a RAM disk???

 

[R. McCarty]

Actually, there are all manner of uses for one. Do you really believe that
Mass Storage will remain "Magnetic" ? I saw an article on a new RAM
based peripheral drive that has 8.0 Gigabytes of physical memory on a
technology website yesterday. For a long time I used a RAM Drive from
a company called Cenatek. It held my Temp folders and IE caches that
where purged at every boot. I also used it as Temp space for multimedia
processing. While a RAM Drive isn't something for everybody. Don't
make light of somebody's desire to investigate and use one, there are a
number of practical uses for one.

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

A RAM disk has no value in the use today's computers.

 

[R. McCarty]

Concise, Global, Absolute answer - but totally lacking in supportive
evidence or personal experience to validate what you say.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have noticed that Windows XP and 2003 come with a RAM Disk driver. I
have installed the Windows RAM Disk Controller and the Windows RAM
Disk Device (Volume) but I don't seem to have created a RAM disk. I
have looked at KB257405 which gives the Windows 2000 sample RAM Disk
driver and used these registry settings with no sucess.

Can someone please tell me how to get the RAM Disk driver working with
Windows XP and 2003 or tell me that it is not possible to get this
driver working. I know that there are a number of free / commercial
RAM Disks on the market, however I'd rath stick to a driver that is
built into Windows.

Except for a rare person with very special needs, or someone with
substantially more RAM than he needs, using a RAM disk is counterproductive
in Winodws. What do you want to use this RAM disk for?

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

Concise, Global, Absolute answer - but totally lacking in supportive
evidence or personal experience to validate what you say.

S O F U C K I N G W H A T ? ? ?

I'm right. That's all that matters.