Howdy all, UBCD is by the greatest program in the world and has helped me out many of times. I'm using it to fix my friends PC however, and it's giving me a little trouble. The machine is a relatively new DELL pc with Windows XP and I'm trying to use the UBCD to clean up a virus on the computer. The DELL PC has 128MB RAM and is enough (this is debateable) to run Windows XP, but when I load the UBCD, it only sets the RAMDISK size to 15MB! Which isn't enough to run the Antivirus software on there.

Is there any way to resize the RAM disk myself? 15MB hardly seems like a good size RAM drive for 128MB RAM, any ideas?

Appreciate all the help in advance

JBurgin

Yes, run PE Builder again. This time select the "plugin" tab, disable the RamDisk AutoResizer plugin. Then build the ISO again.

When you boot with that disabled you SHOULD have a ramdisk of 32Meg, that should be plenty of space for you. The only thing I worry about though is the possiblity that you could run into low memory errors. Hopefully you won't!

128MB of RAM would BARELY run XP as well as this CD. It is recommended that you use more, but if you can't, then I'm sure there's a way to manually resize it, but I don't remember. Someone else will help you though.

the solution for this is to go back to the older version of the ramdisk plugin. I have it working fine here if you guys would like my files.

Also I dont remember but i though bart had done somehting with this. Whatever he did I dont use his stuff. I'm just sticking with the older stuff that works.

I'm not sure that bart made the change/restriction.... this is quoted from the ramdisk home page at http://www.ramdisk.tk/ about the latest version

DigiWiz also supplied addition info about the AutoRamResizer that allocates 1/3 of the available memory here http://www.ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?sh...indpost&p=17375

Note that it the available memory and not 1/3 of the total memory, in this case there is only about 45Mb of available memory on this system in question.

As cheap as memory is at the present time... I would also suggest adding memory to the computer (at least another 128Mb for a 256Mb total)... the user will see a vast improvement in performance then.

Hmmm, maybe I should have provided more information and details in my initial response.

UBCD4Win uses BART'S RamDisk, I "borrowed" it from PE 3.1.4....the beta that doesn't work with the project. I was tired of QSoft's (or whoever they are) restrictions and popups......this was discussed a LONG time ago!

My response IS the solution (given the system will boot and operate with that little of memory). By DEFAULT Bart's RamDisk is set at 32Meg, so disabling the AutoRAMSizer plugin will stop it from changing it to 1/3 of the available system memory.

The reference to Digi's post, actually from what it looks like to me the RamDisk size for BART's Ram driver is 128Mb. He is also mentioning something else, talking about "newer isn't better." Well, we do not have the newer CrapSoft RamDisk....he is and was out of line and misinformed. We discussed all of this a long time ago...probably when 2.4 or 2.41 was released.

I hope it's clear now.

well I was not sure on that. What I can say is that the older version has no restriction on ram disk size.

I also ram accross another project recetly that allows you to create a drive from a file. It looks rather interesting and would allow us to create an actuall file that could be used in place of the ramdisk. The only thing with this method though is that you would want to make sure only to use it on a system with a known good hard drive.

I would also think that this would work great with joshuas pre-shell. That way if thy system is good you just use the drivefile and then also set the page file on the hard drive. Then you dont have to worry at all about the size of the ram disk.

If that is not an option then you could always fall back to the ramdrive as a last resort. And if you use the older version of the ramdrive then you dont have to worry about the size of the ramdisk.

Oh and the drive file allows you to save the state of it as a file also so your could reload it back up. It might come in handy for some things but the problem is that the saved file is the same size as the actuall drive size. So it would eat up allot of space if you made it very big.

I also have a fix for this. I set up logging so that it takes all those popups and just logs them. I think I still occasionaly get one but most of the time the popups are simply gone.

Joshua's PreShell will do this....we are just waiting for him to get the new version out.

As for a fix for the old "CrapSoft" driver, I don't think it would be right for us to modify or hinder his software. If he wants to be a jerk and not give us a license for it and want's to add popup....then we move on to something else. Which we did do....moved to Bart's RamDisk almost a year ago.

ok I understand.

Thanks for the information guys, I will definitely try these out. Gives me a new reason to burn a copy of 2.55 anyway

@SteelTrepid et. al.

Regarding your two responses:



I would respectfully offer: 1) Your response is A solution and 2) you do indeed have the "newer" 'CrapSoft' RamDisk, but just don't know it.

The problem crept in because you decided to deviate from the PE builder standard... UBCD4WIN proclaims that one must use PE builder 3.13, but then you substituted a driver from a different version of PE builder (v3.14 beta). The original driver provided by v3.13 is overwritten by what you supply in v2.55 of UBCD4WIN.

Here is a brief chronology for ramdriv.sys and PE builder:

• v3.032 uses v5.2.7.0 of QSoft's driver
• versions 3.10, 3.12 and 3.13 of PE builder all use v5.2.10.2 of QSoft's driver
• v3.14(beta) of PE builder uses a "customized" version of QSoft's driver made/licensed for BartPE - STILL at version 5.2.10.2. This an be verified by looking at hex offset 0x0000285A where you will see the reference to QSoft

So there are various solutions, not just one. The easiest would be to simply do what you did, except in reverse - rather than use a driver you've deemed more appropriate by "borrowing" one from a "beta" version, simply go the other direction (back in time) and download the driver located in v3.032 of PE builder.

Far be it from me to be an apologist for anyone, but I don't see Digi's comments as being "misinformed" or "out-of-line." Rather, I think he provided a rational
(and legal) alternative - use a driver easily obtainable from an older version of PE builder rather than use the one "borrowed" from a beta version. This would seem to underscore the axiom that indeed, "newer isn't always better." Even no less than webmedic advocates the use of the older driver.

Here are some helpful links for further research into the RAM disk subject:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12467
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
http://www.nu2.nu/download.php?sFile=pebuilder3032.zip
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/pluginhelp/ramdisk.htm

Respectfully submitted...

By default, I new install of 2.55 has both RamDisk (NU2) and Ramdisk (Qsoft v1.9)
enabled.

Which one do I use? or which one do I disable?

thanks

You are confusing two files - there is no QSoft v1.9 - my guess is you're looking at AutoRAMResizer by sherpya which is at v1.9. The actual ramdisk driver is named ramdriv.sys, which is at v5.2.10.2, and while credited with NU2, is actually a modified driver made for NU2 by QSoft.

You can simply download pebuilder3.032 from any other the 30 or so mirrors located here: http://www.nu2.nu/download.php?sFile=pebuilder3032.zip and extract the ramdriv.sys file from that zip (which is v5.2.7.0) and place in your ramdisk plugin folder. Leave AutoRAMResizer alone.

AutoRAMResizer will attempt (as currently configured) to make a RAM disk that is roughly one-third the size of available RAM, but if it unable to do that, will attempt to make as large a RAM disk as possible. Sometimes it is NOT POSSIBLE to get 32MB of RAM disk on a 128MB machine, especially if it utilizes on-board graphics. You may only ever be able to squeeze out something less than 32MB - in the first poster's case, looks like ~15MB.

Regards...

I may be wrong but I see the following:

RamDisk (Nu2 Productions)
RamDisk (Qsoft) AutoReSizer 1.9


I realize that they reference different folders are UBCD folder system but why are we stuck with any ram limitations at all?

Just to let you guys know, the tip worked great (kinda) I had to do some major tweaking to get it to work, but the tip works fine. Appreciate the help

@dhs13:

What you are referring to is merely text inside the .inf file - these are titles only. When you see "RAMDisk [QSoft] AutoResizer v1.9", this only means that AutoRAMResizer (which is a program by Sherpya and is at v1.9) does its work with QSoft's RAMDisk (which is at version 5.2.10.2).

You should look at the individual files themselves for the version numbers, not on arbitrary labels one may ascribe to them in the .infs. In Windows Explorer, hover your mouse over the filename for information, or look inside with a hex editor.

Regards...

If I buy the commerical version, will the commerical version use all of my ram?

Why I ask this question, I don't want UBCD not to work properly and limitation the ram to 1/3 of available is not the way I want UBCD to work.

thanks

First I want to explain a few things quick, then I'll ask some questions. AutoRamSizer was included in the project a long time ago, I found it to be a pretty good solution. The resizer sets 1/3 of available RAM as a Ram drive, until you reach the 96Meg limit. Instead of having the project released with a default size of 32Meg or something it makes a lot more sense to use the autosizer since it "intelligently" changes the size. If we had set the size to a set amount then there could be problems. On systems with only 128Meg of system memory, things would load slow or not at all. If people had more memory and wanted a bigger size then they would have to manually change it BEFORE building. (Hopefully we will have the new version of PreShell soon so this discussion will never have to happen, you will be able to set the size at boot).

How much RAM do you want in your Ram Drive?? Why do you need such a large Ram drive?? The Ram Drive is only for temporary files or space available for you to "play" in. I also do not understand this comment:

I'm trying to understand this statement. The project does use all system memory when booted. The Ram drive is just for launching some programs that need to be able to write. If you want all of your memory used for the Ram Drive....then there is no RAM to execute any programs, let alone NO memory to have the shell and menu running! I think you are misunderstanding what the Ram Drive is and does. A Ram Drive of 32Meg.'s is plenty of room to run ALL programs that are extracted and run from there.

I work on machines that may have less than 128 megs. of ram. UBCD doesn't run at all on some of those machines. If I can use 32 megs of 128, than I am wasting my time and my clients money trying to use UBCD.

Thus the question.

If I buy the commerical package, will it use all 128 megs. of ram?

Thanks for answering my questions.

Your question makes absolutely NO sense. I think you are asking....if you purchase a license for the ram driver, will it allow you to set a ram drive of 128Mb on a system with 128Mb total system memory. Is that your question??

You need to get the setpagefile plugin from paraglider to run
UBCD4WIM with less than the required amout of ram. (128mb)

The system alone uses around 70mb of ram to fully load the drivers, shell & services.
After that, there is only a limited amoount of ram left to create a ramdisk.

No version of a ramdisk driver, paid or free will create a disk in ram that does not exist.

Well that can sometimes work. However, he mentions "clients" computers. The project does hold a 128Meg minimum. If he is loading the project on a "clients" computer to do recovery....then that option shouldn't be used. Honestly, when I have to use the project on a "crappy" system (128Meg or less ram).....I install one of my modules. This not only helps the system to meet or exceed the requirment, but allows the system to load everything quicker also!!!

I cant speak for him and I do see thesame issue others here see in that you can use all your ram for a ram drive but I also do remote services on location and in those cases you don't always have the option to install another stick of ram.

That is also were using bblean helped me out allot.

I did find another shell today though called nix shell that looks very nice and keeps the ram usage down somewhat but not were near as low as bblean does. I does look somewhat close to windows though. with quicklinks even. Only downside is that it instead of showing open tasks in the normal part of the start bar it has a little popup task manager. Other than that it's fairly nice.

http://tecnik.freelinuxhost.com/screenshots.html

it's called nixstep.

At any rate I have been able to boot and use systems with down to 90 something megs of ram. With setpagefile i could go lower as highlander mentioned.

Windows XP needs at least 64 megs.of Ram and a 233 processor.

What I can't see is trying to run UBCD Windows when then ram disk is 32 megs. of ram.

Maybe I am stupid, but how can you boot a machine into a Windows Shell when the machine doesn't meet the minimum qualifications in regard to memory.

So if I purchase the commerical version of Qsoft Ram Disk, will it use all the memory of the machine instead of the 1/3 of the ram of the machine?

Qsoft ram disk appears to have an upper limit of 1.2 gb. of ram.

I still don't think you understand. I've asked you to elaborate more on that question about 3 times now! I'm trying to make sure that I understand exactly what you mean. Using the "licensed" version of Ram Disk will do NOTHING for a system with only 128Meg of RAM. Buying a license for it would be used on a system like mine with 1.5Gig of RAM, if I wanted to say create a 512Meg Ram drive....which I would never do because it's wasted use of RAM. I'll never have to dump 512Meg worth of files to the Ram drive....if I need to copy them somewhere I'll use my network or thumb drive.

You are completely missing the point here because you don't seem to understand what a ram drive is for, you are confusing it with the requirements of Windows itself.

Using the 128Mb system that you mentioned as the example... If Windows uses 64Mb (the minimum) then you only have 64Mb of memory available to use for a ram disk which is only used for items like settings that you can change etc... this isn't like working system memory, its more like a hard drive to store temporary settings and other items that need to be written to the ram drive. With just a 32Mb ram drive allocated... this give Windows 96Mb of memory to work with. So you are using all of the available memory and the ram drive allows you create, read, write, and delete files on a RAM drive the same way you can on a hard disk drive.

Windows takes 64 megs. of Physical ram out of the ram that is on the machine. If I have a machine with 128 megs. of ram, the ram drive or scratch pad is limited to 1/3 of the 128 megs, if possible. of ram. If the physical ram is less than 128 megs. of ram that my scratch pad will be less.
On an 128 meg. machine, I can get 20 megs of scratch pad area to work with, if I remember to clear this scratch pad.
Under DOS, I was able to set the scratch pad of "virtural ram" by issueing a command like DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS 2048 /E.

I want to allocate the ramdrive just like I could in DOS and not limit myself to 32 megs. The more Ram drive, the faster certain operations will happen. The faster it works, the less money my clients pay. It makes them happy and me sad.

So again I ask the question. If I buy the commerical package, will that commerical package allow me to use all ram drive that I can since most progams on UDCB work in a ram drive?

if you use AutoRamResizer plugin, then no !
if you change ramdisk.inf, yes
or you wait, for my PreShell-Plugin.
it will be puplic in the near future.
here some infos about PreShell:

http://www.drowaelder.de/winpe/Joshuas-PreShell/preshell.htm

Joshua

If windows alone takes 64mb to run, you only have 64mb left to run any other programs you need.
The memory requirements for programs are all different, use task manager to check how much
memory is used by the programs you run.

If you use 64 for the ramdrive also, there is no room left to run any programs & you will not be happy.

You can change the default autoramresizer settings to accommodate what setting you want to use.

Open ramdisk.inf & set the defalut ramdrive for 2mb. (This speeds up loading time)
Now open autorun1-ramdisk.cmd

& change it to this... Set the file however you want & keep changing it until you get the results you are looking for.

-l (LOW)=165MB Minimum size ramdisk
-h (High)=225MB Maximum size ramdisk
-f (free)=60MB Minimum free memory for windows.

I have not tested this method with Bart's version of the ramdisk driver.