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Hard Linking from RAM Drive to Physical Media

flash usb ram drive link

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#1 plaskey

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 04:40 PM

Hello All,

I am using WinBuilder to create a (nearly) fully functional Windows 7 bootable USB flash drive based on the Win7SE (32 bit) project. I have been building the basic image then booting it and installing additional software just as I would with a standard Windows HDD installation. While this generally works well, I have encountered a problem.

The way the disk is set up, most of the program installations and temporary files go to the RAM drive, which can fill up very fast. This causes "No space left on device" errors. At the same time, the bulk of my 64 GB flash drive remains mostly untouched.

Since I have a lot of space available on my physical media, and since I do not need high performance from the temp folder or when installing apps, I would like to create hard links in the NTFS filesystem between the X:\Program Files, X:\temp and x:\Windows\temp to their corresponding folders on Y:\. I think this can be done usink "mklink /J ..." but I am not sure how to set this up so that WinBuilder creates the links at build time.

Can anyone help me figure out the best way to accomplish this?

Thank you,
Peter

#2 amalux

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 05:14 PM

Provide a log so that we don't have to ask silly questions like, is the project build model set to Normal or InRAM?

Have you considered a real Windows 7 installation on that 64 GB flash drive?

#3 plaskey

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 05:43 PM

Thank you for the reply. I'm sorry but I cannot figure out how to attach my log file. Since it is extensive and in HTML format, I assume I should upload it as an attachment and not paste the source here. Happy to send it if you can tell me how.

The build model is InRAM because WinBuilder requires it for USB-based installations.

I have considered a real Win7 installation to flash but I have never been able to find a viable way to do it. Win Builder is the only solution that has worked so far. If you know of a way to do it, please let me know.

Thank you.

#4 MedEvil

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 07:56 PM

It might be worth a look if the following can be done:

- create a ram-disk
- set FBWF to use that ramdisk as cache, instead of RAM

If it can be done in a PE, then the FBWF limit can be broken.

:cheers:

#5 amalux

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 09:20 PM

I have considered a real Win7 installation to flash but I have never been able to find a viable way to do it. Win Builder is the only solution that has worked so far. If you know of a way to do it, please let me know.

Try PW_Boot http://reboot.pro/6851/ It has worked well for me ;)

set_7_usb_boot.cmd http://reboot.pro/14186/page__st__21 should also work.

p.s. Until you have more posts (100?), you need to use a free hosting site (mediafire or whatever) for linking to files, sorry.

#6 plaskey

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Posted 13 January 2012 - 11:46 PM

Thanks for the tip. I will try PW_Boot right away!

#7 plaskey

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Posted 14 January 2012 - 12:21 AM

OK, it looks like PW_Boot is a no-go. The forums are full of problems and there is no clear instructions on how to get it to work. It seems much less stable than WinBuilder. I will continue to try to make it work with WinBuilder. Thank you for the suggestion though.

#8 amalux

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Posted 14 January 2012 - 01:36 AM

Most of the difficulties are related to how the installation is performed. There is an easy way that works great but you need a hard drive backup software like Acronis to restore an image (created from your current Windows 7 install) to the external USB; then apply the patch.

You may also consider using portable programs that can be run from ramdisk (more flexible than using system x: drive) or run from external hard drive or UFD.

I'll look into the mklink batch for you to see if that's an option. I'm curious how much RAM you have available.





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