OS in RamDisk

[Sligolad]

Might be worth trying Tony and leave out the AO install altogether to see if you can get to the RamDisk booting stage using the instructions!!

The more i read up on it using Google the more i think you need the original OS installed in IDE mode.
While it may be antiquated it operates at the same speed over SATA, it just has some additional capabilities which we do not need for RamDisk.

Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and Hot Swapping is not something I think you will need!!

[Sligolad]

IDE is not required and I wouldn't recommend it as an obsolete protocol.

Hi Aleg, i read on the German Forum where you had lots of issues installing RamDisk and you eventually got it to work.....did you get it to work with your original OS installed in AHCI mode?

[seeteeyou]

Does it help to add the F6 Floppy image of FiraDisk during the initial setup of Windows?



Extract firadisk-driver-0.0.1.30-f6.7z and then point the installation to the folder where those files were extracted:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zqbzl5sa7 ... 1.30-f6.7z
http://reboot.pro/topic/8804-firadisk-latest-00130/

If that were done without any issues, it should look like this and just pick FiraDisk from the list instead:



Other than that, we might have to find out if the AHCI driver provided by Intel or Microsoft were working better with FiraDisk. Fire up Device Manager and then expand that IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers category afterwards.

The Driver Provider could be either one:




Let's say FiraDisk might work better with the Intel flavor than the native one by Microsoft, we could install the latest version of Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver from their Download Center and see how it goes:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Search ... rodId=2101

What if that were still no go? FiraDisk itself should belong to the SCSI miniport as shown in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder



Basically that's the sequence of various services being loaded during the bootup process of Windows. Since we're getting BSoD with FiraDisk already, we could get that service to be loaded either earlier or later by changing its group.

First of all, elevate the privilege of Command Prompt like this:



After that, we could bump FiraDisk up in the queue (from SCSI miniport to Boot Bus Extender) with these changes to its registry key:

Code: Select all

REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\firadisk /v Group /t REG_SZ /d "Boot Bus Extender" /f
REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\services\firadisk /v Group /t REG_SZ /d "Boot Bus Extender" /f
REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\firadisk /v Group /t REG_SZ /d "Boot Bus Extender" /f

Similarly, change SCSI miniport to Primary Disk instead:

Code: Select all

REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\firadisk /v Group /t REG_SZ /d "Primary Disk" /f
REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\services\firadisk /v Group /t REG_SZ /d "Primary Disk" /f
REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\firadisk /v Group /t REG_SZ /d "Primary Disk" /f

Hopefully that could get both FiraDisk and AHCI to play well together.

[Octagon]

IDE is not required and I wouldn't recommend it as an obsolete protocol.

Hi Aleg, i read on the German Forum where you had lots of issues installing RamDisk and you eventually got it to work.....did you get it to work with your original OS installed in AHCI mode?

There is no issue with AHCI, at least in my system and others I know well.

If you are refering to the "aktives-hoeren" forum please keep in mind that the main discussion is about a stripped OS in RAM. From my experience that is a huge difference and causes totally different issues. For me it is unclear what the "Win Compact" is really doing, so there might be some of the issue comming from as all our systems are so different to each other. In addition USB sticks are used to boot, not an internal SSD/harddisc. But there are many folks now with a RAMBoot working anyway.

I would recommend if you experience all these problems to start with a full OS in RAM and strip down later step by step the moment you managed that to run. You would need 16 GB RAM for the full install of the 8 GB R2. You may use my description of tools at the beginning of this thread. To understand all steps at the beginning of my way into RAM this page http://tech.outcult.com/tutorials/winram/01/ has been very usefull. Please be aware, the text description has a mistake in one step I don't remember anymore. Make use of the videoguide mentioned. If you use VLC player playing it in slow motion helps to understand every single step, maybe this sorts out your problem. Oh, yes - it has no sound ;)

I keep my Fingers crossed for you, the result is really worth the work!
Thomas

[Aleg]

IDE is not required and I wouldn't recommend it as an obsolete protocol.

Hi Aleg, i read on the German Forum where you had lots of issues installing RamDisk and you eventually got it to work.....did you get it to work with your original OS installed in AHCI mode?

Yes

It is just working in AHCI and I always worked from a clean install.

The issues I had were due to using a non-registered Win2012 and not let it reboot often enough.
When using a non-registered Win2012 it seems it does not setup all devices or configurations from the start.
It had to be rebooted several times until was stable and only then it should be reduced in size.

Using a registered Win2012 again doing a clean install, was immediately stable.


One has to turn off UEFI boot for RAMDISK, but that is not related to AHCI/IDE

Cheers

Aleg

[Octagon]

The issues I had were due to using a non-registered Win2012 and not let it reboot often enough.
When using a non-registered Win2012 it seems it does not setup all devices or configurations from the start.
It had to be rebooted several times until was stable and only then it should be reduced in size.

Using a registered Win2012 again doing a clean install, was immediately stable.

Hi Aleg,
That would be a good explanation for a lot of problems I have heard and I couldn't find with my setup as it has been registered after installing. Thinking about it, it is in line what MS says about the registration of the evaluation version.
Thank's
Thomas

[tony]

Thanks Aleg/Thomas. Will try a few reboots and see if that resolves the issue. My version is not registered the pc is not internet connected etc. Be nice if that is the solution

[Octagon]

Thanks Aleg/Thomas. Will try a few reboots and see if that resolves the issue. My version is not registered the pc is not internet connected etc. Be nice if that is the solution

Tony,
It would just need a short connection, I have just plugged in the network cable with R2 running and then rebooted with the network connected only once. R2 will show you that it is registered and you can unplug the connection and don't need it anymore. Wireless should work the same I guess.
Without registration it will not work properly as different mechanisms avoid that by the license management of MS.
Take care
Thomas

[Sligolad]

I should point out that all my installs on the current Gigabyte board and the previous MSI board have been without ever having a network or wireless connection present.

I have only run RamDisk on the Gigabyte board so far but again this was without any network or wireless connection and this was with the Free Server 2012 R2 Essentials trial version with a licence key you have to type in during the install.

If I get time over the coming weekend I might try a fresh install using AHCI and the same Free Server 2012 R2 Essentials trial version to see if I can find any issues on a spare SSD and without running AO.

[tony]

A few reboots which I have fairly little faith in terms of having success are an easy one to try.
Connecting to the internet maybe I will go that far and if that all fails it is back to drawing board.

I think at the end of this it will only be resolved by going back and reinstall everything. My fear is it will
not sort the prob but lets see what happens