You can use the MS-DOS based ramdrive.sys in Windows XP by following these steps:
1. Start the Add Hardware Wizard.
2. Click on 'Next' on the 'Welcome' screen of the Hardware Wizard.
3. The Hardware Wizard will scan your machine for new hardware.
4. When it finds no new hardware, say YES, you have the hardware in.
5. Go to the bottom and choose the 'Add a new hardware device' option.
6. Use the 'Install the hardware that I manually select from a List (Advanced)' choice.
7. On the next screen, use the first choice 'Show all devices'. [WAIT!!]
8. From the next screen, choose 'Microsoft' in the list and select the 'RAMdisk Driver'. There is also the
'Have Disk' button - if you click that button, you can manually select ramdisk.inf from C:\WINDOWS\INF
9. Click 'Next' and the Hardware Wizard will install the RAMdisk driver.
That installs the hardware so that it now exists on the system. The next thing is to configure it so as to be
useful. A quick way may be to add this to your registry and see what happens on your machine. I do not know if
this will work for you but I have this in my registry.
Put this into a text file called <whateveryouwant>.reg and click it -> yes
-----start----
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk]
"Type"=dword:00000001
"Start"=dword:00000000
"ErrorControl"=dword:00000001
"ImagePath"=hex(2):53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,44,00,\
52,00,49,00,56,00,45,00,52,00,53,00,5c,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,64,00,69,00,73,\
00,6b,00,2e,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,00,00
"DisplayName"="Ramdisk Driver"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk\Parameters]
"BreakOnEntry"=dword:00000000
"DebugLevel"=dword:00000000
"DebugComp"=dword:ffffffff
"DiskSize"=dword:002e8000
"DriveLetter"="Z:"
"RootDirEntries"=dword:00000200
"SectorsPerCluster"=dword:00000002
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk\Security]
"Security"=hex:01,00,14,80,90,00,00,00,9c,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,30,00,00,00,02,\
00,1c,00,01,00,00,00,02,80,14,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,\
00,00,02,00,60,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,14,00,fd,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,\
05,12,00,00,00,00,00,18,00,ff,01,0f,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,\
20,02,00,00,00,00,14,00,8d,01,02,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,0b,00,00,00,00,\
00,18,00,fd,01,02,00,01,02,00,00,00,00,00,05,20,00,00,00,23,02,00,00,01,01,\
00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00,01,01,00,00,00,00,00,05,12,00,00,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk\Enum]
"Count"=dword:00000001
"NextInstance"=dword:00000001
"0"="Root\\UNKNOWN\\0000"
--------end-------
This ramdrive.sys only supports up to 32 MB but Microsoft also have a sample driver you can download and
modify to suit your specific needs. It was mad for 2000 but should be suitable for XP. This will hopefully get
you to the 256MB you desire but I do not know since I have not used it.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q257/4/05.ASP
--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/