ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver - Latest version 1.2.3 built 23 Dec 2009.

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Update 23 Dec 2009

• Release 1.2.3 of ImDiskVirtual Disk Driver.
• The driver now supports 64 virtual drives instead of 32.
• ImDisk virtual disks can now hold Windows swapfiles. Useful ifyou want to create a swapfile on a diskless (RAM-booted) machine, or ifyou want to create a swapfile on a network drive.
• Security change. On Windows XP and later, file permissions arenowchecked so that user mounting a new virtual disk actually has requestedaccess to the image file to mount. If user does not have access to theimage file, the device creation operation is denied by the driver andis reported as an "Access denied" error message to the user. On Windows2000 and earlier the driver works like in previous versions, that is,without any access checks.
• Security fix. There was a privilege check missing in a callbackthatthe helper service uses to callback into the driver when a proxyconnection has been established and is ready to be used by the driver.Without this privilege check there is a backdoor into privileged kernelspace. This has now been fixed.

ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver -Latest version 1.2.3built 23 Dec 2009.

ImDisk is a virtual disk driver for WindowsNT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008. It can createvirtual hard disk, floppy or CD/DVD drives using image files or systemmemory. The install packageinstallsaconsole-mode control program called imdisk.exeand a Control Panel applet
.After install is finished, type imdiskwithout parameters for syntax help or double click the ImDisk icon in the Control Panel.It also adds a menu item in Windows Explorer so that you canright-clickon a file to mount it as a virtual disk drive.Users of mdconfig in FreeBSDwill probablybe familiar with the command line syntax of imdisk.exe. The driver, service andcontrol program can be uninstalled using the Add/Remove programs appletin the Control Panel. No reboot is required for installing oruninstalling.

The install package also contains a user-mode helper service thatenables the virtual disk driver to forward I/O requeststo other computers on the network. This makes it possible toboot a machine with NTFS partitions with a *nix Live-CD and use theincluded  devio tool tolet ImDisk on anothercomputer running Windows on the network mount the NTFS partition on themachine you booted with the *nix Live-CD. This way you can recoverinformation and even run chkdsk on drives on machines where Windowsdoes not boot. I am working on a Live CD image with devio and other useful things forthis pre-loaded. There are also instructions about how to use devio under Windows on ClausValca'sblog.

• Download screenshot -43.5 KB
• Download the install package- 280 KB, works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

About the install package
The install package is created using 7-zipsfx stubs andincludes an .infinstall script. No reboot is required after installing or uninstalling.The install package works on WindowsNT 3.51/NT 4.0/2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista/Server 2008, both 32-bit and64-bit versions.

Special note for both 32-bit and64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7
OnVista and Server 2008 you need to either turn off UAC, User AccessControl, or setup thedriver to auto-load on system startup. Setting the driver to auto-startis recommended.

About turning off UAC: http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/09/20/763275.aspx
-- or --
Set the ImDisk driver to auto-load at Command Prompt: sc configimdisk start= auto
orset the ImDisk driver to auto-load using GUI: Open Device Manager, View-> Show hidden devices. Under "Non-plug-and-play devices"right-click ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver and select properties.On the "Driver" tab, change start type to Automatic.

Using either solution it should work after next reboot.


Please note that 64-bit versions has not been fully testedbut they share source code with the 32-bit version so they should be asstable as the 32-bit version. All features and most limitations are thesame in the 64-bit and 32-bit versions. One notable difference howeveris that the 64-bit versions do not have any practical size limits forRAM disks.

Specialnote specifically for 64-bit editions only of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 andWindows 7
The 64-bit driver files included in the install package will not loadon 64-bit Vista or 64-bit Server 2008 unless the machine is runningwith testsigning switched on(type bcdedit/set testsigning onat Command Prompt and reboot to activate this). Testsigning modemeans that 64-bit Windows will load drivers signed with testcertificates and not only certificates backed by a trusted rootcertificate. The driver files are signed with my test certificate whichcan be imported to the Trusted RootCertification Authorities on the 64-bit Windows machine. You candownload the test certificate here.Thisappliesto64-bitVistaand64-bitServer2008,itis notnecessary on 64-bit Server 2003 or 64-bit XP where the driver willload automatically.

Special note for Windows NT 3.51
The.inf file used in theinstall process is notcompatible with Windows NT 3.51. To install on NT 3.51 you can extractthe files in the packages using7-zip and then manually create the driver keys in the registry or usinga SCM control tool like sc.exein the Windows NT Resource Kit. On later versions of Windows you justrun thepackage and it will install everything automatically.


Sourcecode
Source code for all of ImDisk,includingaserver-partfor*nixlikesystems,isavailableasa7-zip compressed file here(96KB). The Windows parts of the source code canbe built in the Windows 2000 build environemt in the latest WDK and the*nix parts canbe built with gcc. If you want to call functions forcreating/removing/querying virtual disks from your own program you can#include the file inc\imdisk.h in your C/C++ source files and link thecpl\i386\imdisk.lib library. If you would like information about how towrite compatible server-end softwareyou can take a look at the I/O packet structures in inc\imdproxy.h.

License
I have received some e-mails with questions wether or not it is okay toinclude this driver in a commercial product. The answer is yes,just like all other tools I publish here. However, note that a fewlines of code are under the GNU GPLlicense, this is basically the parts related to floppy emulation. Someof the driver code is also ported to Windows NT from the FreeBSD 'md'driver.

Forum
A new sub-forum has been started at the boot-landforum.This new sub-forum is for discussions about ImDisk Virtual Disk Driverand other tools published here.

bluemoon

消息挺灵,顶一个!~~

yichya

似乎多了一个AWEALLOC.SYS

wongfaye

非常快嘛！谢谢分享！