Gavotte Ramdisk Setup

The GUI of Gavotte Ramdisk provides some basic functions for the Ramdisk setup. They are:

1. Click 'Install Ramdisk' button to install Gavotte Ramdisk.

2. Setup the size of Ramdisk by selecting from the Disk Size ComboBox.

3. Setup the Drive Letter of Ramdisk by selecting from the Driver Letter ComboBox. The default is "R"

4. Setup the Media Type of Ramdisk by selecting from the Media Type CheckBox. The default is "Fixed Media"

5. Click 'Remove Ramdisk' button to uninstall Gavotte Ramdisk

6. Click 'Load Image' button to retreive the saved Ramdisk image file.

7.  Click 'Save Image' button to save the Ramdisk to a image file.

Besides the 'ramdisk.exe', GUI for Gavotte Ramdisk installation, Gavotte Ramdisk also provides some basic commands for Ramdisk setup. They are 'rdutil.exe' and 'addswap.exe'.

Registry parameters setting and other information can be found in the readme.txt.

Registry Parameters:

1. Parameters registry

   HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\RRamdisk\Parameters\

2. Parameter: DiskSizeM, DiskSizeK

   Disk Size of M byte or K byte with DiskSizeK having higher priority.

3. Parameter: MediaType

   Reported drive type of the ramdisk with 1 for Ram Drive, 2 for Fixed Media, 3 for Removable Media, and 4 for Floppy Diskette and is by default set to 2

4. Parameter: DriveLetter

   Setting the drive letter of the ramdisk and is by default set to R

5. Parameter: SectorsPerCluster

   Setting the cluster size of the ramdisk and zero for driver pickup

6. Parameter: Image

   Storage for the packed ramdisk image and is maintained by the utility program, rdutil.exe.

Pagefile support:

Pagefile can be created directly by the utility program, addswap.exe.

Syntax: addswap r:\pagefile.sys 512 1023 (create pagefile.sys with size minimum 512M and maximum 1023M in the ramdisk. However there is limitation on the maximum size of 2047M during testing.

Remarks from readme.txt:

.........................
05. Parameter: SectorsPerCluster
   your desired cluster size, zero for driver pickup:
     2 M: FAT12, cluster=512
      32 M: FAT16, cluster=512
      64 M: FAT16, cluster=1k
    128 M: FAT16, cluster=2k
    256 M: FAT16, cluster=4k
    512 M: FAT32, cluster=2k
      16 G: FAT32, cluster=4k
    ... you can specify smaller cluster size, force pre-format as FAT32
06. Parameter: Image
   maintained by rdutil utlilty, mainly for preload NTFS image. eg:
   1.) load ramdisk, don't write anything
   2.) format the ramdisk
     FORMAT /FS:NTFS /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:
   3.) adjust logfile to minimum size
     CHKDSK /L:2048 R:
   4.) reset access rights
     CACLS R:\ /G: BUILTIN\Adminstrators:F
   5.) create necessary structure
     MKDIR R:\TEMP
   6.) pack the disk image and save to registry
     rdutil R: registry
   Notes:
   1.) You should leave RamDisk as clean as possible before packing,
     the max packed image size is 64K.
   2.) The disk image only valid to same RamDisk size, you should
     re-create disk image when size changed.
   3.) The driver internal formater will disable if this registry present,
     corrupt/size-mismatch value leave an un-formated disk.
   rdutil utlility usage:
   1.) backup registry image
     rdutil save filename
   2.) restore registry image
     rdutil load filename
   3.) report packed image size
     rdutil R:
     rdutil registry
     rdutil unpacked_file
      second command reading DriveLetter from registry
      the third is packing an unpacked image file
   4.) packing image & save to registry
     rdutil R: registry
   5.) packing image & save to file
     rdutil R: packed_file
   6.) unpacking image
     rdutil unpack packed_file unpacked_file
   7.) link NTFS junction to Ramdisk
     rdutil link temp \
07. Re-Format RamDisk
    You can re-format RamDisk except RAMDrive media type. eg:
    FixedMedia type
     FORMAT /FS:NTFS /FORCE /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:
    RemovableMedia type
     ECHO Y | FORMAT /FS:NTFS /FORCE /Q /V:RamDisk /A:512 R:
    you can place your format command to startup script.
    I don't recommend re-format to FAT, the pre-formated RamDisk is
    more efficient than other format utililty.
08. pagefile support
   you can set pagefile to FixMedia type disk w/ pre-formated system.
   if you need other MediaType or re-format, use the addswap.exe utility:
     addswap r:\pagefile.sys 16 32
   create pagefile r:\pagefile.sys with min=16M max=32M.
09. TEMP directory
   you should set TEMP/TMP directory to TEMP sub-directory,
   don't use the root directory.
10. NTFS junction point to RAMDrive
   You can't create NTFS junction point to RAMDrive media type,
   Fixed & Removable Media type should work
11. Connectix VirtualPC compatibility
   someone report problem with VirtualPC+physical volume/disk.
   please set MediaType to RAMDrive/Removable.
12. Mountpoint without DriveLetter
   Clear DriveLetter registry value will not create Drive Letter for Ramdisk.
   Attn. Don't delete the DriveLetter registry, which fall to default R:.
   You can setup mountpoint/junction linking to this unnamed Ramdisk.
    eg:
     rdutil link C:\ramdisk
      link C:\ramdisk to root of Ramdisk
     rdutil link C:\TEMP TEMP
      link C:\TEMP to \TEMP at Ramdisk
     rmdir C:\ramdisk
      rmdir can remove the link without clear target content
   NoDriveLetter configuration isn't recommended, because most AntiVirus
   software cannot realtime scan Volume w/o Drive Letter.