There are quite a number of posts regarding booting a FULL xp from cd/dvd and usb. My questions are:

1) When they are booting from cd/dvd or usb does this says that the entire full xp in load into ram and xp boot. Any working on the xp (doc, download file or playing mp3, etc) are all done in the ram?

2) Is the booting speed from usb booting faster than cd/dvd booting? If everything is load into ram. does games allow as games takes alot of resources.

My question is even simpler:
Can you post some links to the "number" of posts about FULL XP from CD/DVD and USB. (not to all of them, just to those that load the FULL XP in RAM)?

I am asking since I know NONE of them, maybe I missed something?

jaclaz

For example a tutorial by Dietmar on how to boot a full xp using usb.

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181

This particular tutorial http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...mp;#entry144095

BOTH do not, and I mean DO NOT load a FULL XP in RAM.

First is the "thread that started it all", is ONLY from USB (NOT CD) and the second is for booting from USB (NOT CD) on motherboards which BIOS does not support USB booting.

There is just ONE method for FULL XP in RAM, euhenio's one:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=19056&hl=
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1145
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=1218&hl=
though it is not really FULL as it is limited to the Server 2003 SP1 or R2 RAMDISK.SYS (512 Mbyte)

ONE Commercial solution for REALLY FULL XP in RAM:
http://www.disklessangel.com/
http://www.disklessangel.com/modules.php?name=guide

There is also another project ETBOOT:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=3890
to run a FULL XP from CD (but it does not load it in RAM)

Now, please tell us which one you are interested in - no matter if in RAM or not - and re-issue your questions (changing them if needed at the light of the above info).

jaclaz

The ram limit seems to be the fault of ram driver... any work around on this?

wanted to have a full xp boot from cdrom, usb or ram whichever speediest... and have the same or near efficient like working on xp in hardrive.

the use of ewf realy annoy due to "delay write problem" ewf is really ram eater... and make this possible to work on application like photoshop...

edit : ...not possible to work on photoshop

question : does the installed size in C: used to make the image has to be less than the microsoft ramdriver limit or just to have nlite iso be less than the limit (not the install)

The size of the WHOLE installed XP (size of the partition image) needs to be smaller than 512 Mbyte.

If you use a NTFS compressed volume you can of course "fit" into this size some more data, depending on the nature of the data something like 50% to 75% more.
No way to know an exact figure.

Something you might want to explore is the usage of Gavotte's RRamdisk:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4064

Or explore the possibility of a "mixed" environment, where part of the build is on the bootable MS RAMdisk and the rest is on other Ramdisks, like the said Gavotte's, IMDISK or other ones.

Or, as said, invest a few tens on bucks on the available Commercial solution - there may be other ones.

jaclaz

Would u pls elaborate on abt the mix environment. Does this like making a small xp to fit the limit of microsoft ramdisk and for applications mount them to a installed gavotte ramdisk installed on the small xp when xp has been boot up?

Is there a definitive tutorial / thread on how this be done?

The commericial angel seems nice but tie to hardware. Between what do they use to load the xp into ram. Modify the microsoft ramdisk?

Yep, the idea is to have a minimal "base" for the files needed for booting and "essential" directories, then access all other files by mounting them with a Filesystem (better) OR Ramdisk (if plenty of RAM) driver.

Possibly complete list of candidates to experiment with:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=1507

New entry, completely and utterly UNtested - but really promising:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=6492&hl=

NO "definite" anything.

Search on the board for posts by Ferengi, Pavel, and Sanbarrow, and for the tutorials about RAMDISK by aec, besides the given threads about the euhenio's method.

No, windrv (disklessangel Author) has written a ramdisk driver with bigger capacity.

jaclaz

Kind of new to the mix environment. Some questions:

1) If using a filesystem to mount the application to the ram, does this require putting the application modules in another storage? If together with the xp, wouldn't be likely to exceed the microsoft ram limit?

2) Does this require some auto script to copy the application modules to the ram since the ram install in like xp is volatile and lose data when shut down. All application modules have to recopied to the ram eveytime xp boot up?

Both your last two questions simply don't make sense to me.

Can we change the rules of the game?

YOU post a full description of what actual features you want/need for your project and details on the hardware it is supposed to run.

WE try to help you.

Till now there have been "generic" questions and rather obviously "generic" answers, maybe if we focus what we are talking about you can make specific questions and possibly get specific answers.

It seems to me that you are not even an inch nearer to whatever you want to do, is this intended to be a "phylosophical" thread about the good and bad of different, vague and unspecified ways to boot or something you actually need to work on?


jaclaz

Hi,

Have not tried any of the many great stuffs whether is boot from cd/dvd, usb thumbdrive or usb hdd. So don't know what are the advantages and disadvantages of each methods. Tried ewf and there is this "delay write problem and ram eater" so that is kind of out...

Some of the features require :

1) Boot a full xp from ram. Which is the speediest of loading xp into ram? From cd, dvd, usb thumbdrive or usb hdd. There is quite alot of different methods as from your post, some using sdi and some using ram installed (mix environment). Which is recommended? Does not really require write persistent. The idea of using mounting after xp has boot up seems nice. If using ram installed wouldn't this require copying the applications to ram to lauch everytime xp has boot up?

2) Nlite is nice to trim the xp but might just not use the software. There is always this "software require this feature" problem in futures.

3) If possible boot from any pc rather than tie to hardware. There is some posts (lost the url) that says that boot from ram on any pc is possible with some tweakings.

Ultimate wanted a full xp that boot from ram. But with the limit of microsoft ram this seems really require really nlite... Consider bartpe but the idea of getting plugins really arghhh... esp for exotic softwares.

Angel software tie to hardware. Thought this is mostly a marketing tactic rather than the limitation

windows Vista PE 2 waik boots into ram
you can remove Cd and still works.
it also is hot plug USB
check PE section of this forum.

Bart menu works ok in PE2 (vista PE)

also portable apps menu
http://portableapps.com/download

is very interesting (not bootable)as
http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading...m_Setup_1.1.exe

you an add programs from program file to it and they run from the memory stick
which means you can use memory stick from another pc and the program still works ok
and all setting is saved on stick.

as it is free ware it is much better than U3

just an idea.

Ben

If the best FULL description of what you want is:


You already have ALL the best FULL answers you can have, end of the game.

Try each method, choose the one you like best.



NOone is "recommended" NOone is "disapproved", each one is better suited for some final goal.

jaclaz

Jaclaz,

Thought wanted to try the euhenio method or pe boot. Some questions:

1) Would be possible to use microsoft virtual pc to install the xp instead on a hdd? There are some post that hdd is prefer due to driver maybe conflicts in virtual file drive. Is euhenio method tie to hardware?

2) Why is that ppl don't really like using qemu (in many posts) for the creation of img? If once created, what do u use to copy the installed XP into the img? Just copy the C:\ entire folder? Thought some files would not be possible to copy due to xp is running?

3) Do you know is there portable virtualbox that possible to use on limited account? Or a plugin for bartpe or winpe.

Hi clarodina,

For your own safety, please try euhenio's work only from a test machine since it might do severe damage to your running system and also prepare yourself for some days of trials to get things minimally working (I talk with experience on this matter)

If you read the discussion topic for mobileOS on boot land you quickly understand why it didn't grow much on popularity since documentation is little to none.

It's a WinBuilder project in essence but was developed having in mind euhenio's goals to use it as an automate tool for portion of the build project and this won't ease one inch your learning step.

------

From my opinion, the best approach ever to run a full XP from RAM is the tutorial made by thuun: http://thuun.boot-land.net/XPnRAM

---

He produced so many genial pieces of software over the years and it's sad to see so much of his talented work fade away from the collective internet memory..

Met a problem in using filedisk to mount a qemu raw img.

Download filedisk-14.zip, extract the folder, copy the filedisk.sys to system32, input the registry then reboot.

Cmd, type filedisk /mount C:\Programs Files\Qemu\Raw.img 50M g:

Is this the right way to mount? Because thee img file refuse to mount and just came out help file in the cmd.

Since your path has spaces in it you'll need to quote it - or alternatively, avoid spaces in paths for this kind of thing.

Try the following but error is cannot find the specific path.

filedisk /mount 0 "C:\Program Files\Qemu\win2k3.img" "50M" "G:"

Must the entire filedisk folder be placed in system32? Sorry for such simple tech questions but due to lack of tech sawy knowledge and experience hope someone would illustrate the baby steps. Tks.

When using virtual clone drive to mount the img created from qemu-img.exe, the message is drive maybe corrupted.