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From: goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Reset survivable RAM disk?
Message-ID: <6893@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Date: 14 Dec 89 16:19:44 GMT
Sender: newsdaemon@shlump.nac.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Littleton MA USA
Lines: 21

In article <1904@syma.sussex.ac.uk>, leilabd@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Leila Burrell-Davis) writes...
>On the Atari ST I use, I have a ram disk which will survive a warm
>reset with its contents intact. This is extremely useful when doing
>things which are likely to crash the machine, as it saves having to
>copy the ram disk's contents (e.g. compiler, editor) back from floppy
>disk every time I hang the machine. Is such a thing available for a PC
>or is there some reason why it would be difficult/impossible to do?

From my limited PC experience (I'm an old Atari ST user myself), I've 
noted that with an AT-class machine, the Microsoft RAMdrive is 
reset-proof IF it's in EXTENDED memory (the /e option), but not if
it's in EXPANDED memory (the /a option).  I suspect it's because
extended memory is not seen by DOS during its own startup.

I don't know of a reset-proof ramdisk for expanded memory or base 
memory, not that you'd want too much stuck in base memory!  The RAMdisk 
on the NEC Multispeed is reset-proof, but I think there's some hardware 
hackery there (it's limited to the top of base memory, which has special 
low-power SRAM).  And that's not part of DOS, but part of NEC's own
firmware.
     fred