'System' RAMdisks

[ogrerocks]

I am thinking about creating a RAMdisk on my PC. Specs in sig.

I've done a search, and there seem to be RAMdisk products that will create it. However, I want to run XP pro off of the RAMdisk. The products all seem to create the RAMdrive, but it's just another drive.

How do I load on OS into a RAMdisk? How big is a mimimal XP pro? What do you think a performance increase could be?

I'm really at a loss of where to start. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

[Force Flow]

First, you would need a motherboard with integrated USB support and be able to select it as a boot device. As for an install, I think the min is somewhere around 1GB

[ogrerocks]

Originally Posted by Force Flow First, you would need a motherboard with integrated USB support and be able to select it as a boot device. As for an install, I think the min is somewhere around 1GB

I have intergrated USB support, but why would I need it? I thought that the OS would load from the HDD, then copy itself to a RAMdisk and run from that. Am I missing something, or am I wrong?

[EzyStvy]

Disk and Drive are the same thing are they not?

You might play around with this for a while. Doubt you'll ever get a whole operating system to install/load and run in ramdisk. It'd get pretty old re-installing it everytime you reboot

AR RAM Disk

AR RAM Disk is a driver for Windows NT/2000/XP used to create an additional drive in your memory. This drive can be used for storing temporary files, this can increase your system speed.

http://www.arsoft-online.de/download/ramdisk.zip

Read more...

Warning:

Use AR Soft RAM Disk at your own risk.
Using large amount of memory for the RAM Disk can cause problems with other drivers or programs.

Notes:
If you reboot your system all contents of the RAM Disk will be lost!The theoretical maximum capacity of the RAM Disk is 2GB.If driver fails to allocate the memory, the driver does not start. The driver writes an event record into the Event Log. Please look into the Event Viewer for more details of the error.Package contains:
RAM Disk Driver for Windows NT or Windows 2000/XP
RAM Disk Control Panel Applet

[ogrerocks]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy Disk and Drive are the same thing are they not? You might play around with this for a while. Doubt you'll ever get a whole operating system to install/load and run in ramdisk. It'd get pretty old re-installing it everytime you reboot AR RAM Disk ...

I think you can do the following:
Boot from the HDD.
Once windows is loaded, it copies itself to the RAMdisk.
Then windows runs from the RAMdisk, and is super fast.

But I don't know how to do the copy part, or am really sure about the actual RAMdisk.
Has anyone set up their own RAMdisk?

[EzyStvy]

I'm using the software I referenced above. Have my temp internet files going to it. When I'm feeling really wild and crazy I place my swap file out there.

I don't recommend the swap file thingie on a machine where the data is important to you.

I've heard of people running games off of ram drives. But WinXP is 2 to 3 gigs!! and don't think you find an answer to running an OS.