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Fastload from HDD

Fill RAM direct from a image file at Boot-Up.
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If you have ever used a laptop with a hibernate function you will have noticed how cool it is.

This allows PC's to boot in a fraction of the time.

Hibernation is thus:

You Choose [Start], [Suspend] and the PC copies the entire contents of System and Video RAM to the HardDrive and shuts down.

When you turn the PC back on, it looks for this Hibernation file, and if it's there, loads the contents back into memory. The PC then resumes where you left off.

*IDEA* Have this as a standard function. Allow users to copy the contents of the PC RAM/Video RAM to an Image file on the Hard Drive and boot from that every day.

The Image file would have to be updated if the user installed and new drivers etc, but that could all be handled by the OS.

The users would have the option to do a full boot and restart windows by holding down the enter key when the system boots.

The Image would not be created every time you shutdown (else the system would become more and more FUBARED each day) but would just be re-created when you have installed some new software, and only straight after a reboot.

This would be simple to implement, it would just take a motherboard manufacturer to knick the BIOS code off of a laptop BIOS and tweak it a little.

A debate at the office could not come up with any bad point for this that could not be easily overcome.

CasaLoco, May 04 2001

Switch on and play http://www.halfbake...h_20on_20and_20play
[egnor, May 04 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

here's the linux kernel patch http://falcon.sch.b...s/linux/swsusp.html
pretty much exactly as requested. [tenhand, May 04 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Virtual Linux http://www.virtual-....org/nuke/index.php
OS running from CD!!! you want a newer OS, simply swap the CD and you'll still have your files on the hard drive, viruses... they can not write to CD. [linux_geek, Oct 04 2004]

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       Just have cured it - now all we need to do is find a motherboard manufacturer willing to make the stuff. Irony is that it wouldn't cast any more than a standard motherboard.
CasaLoco, May 04 2001
  

       In my experience, "de-hibernating" doesn't take appreciably less time than booting from scratch. The main advantage is that you can keep your state alive, but that's not what you're proposing.   

       Anyway, we've discussed this to death and back -- please, go visit the link before adding more comments. Especially see the various "Instant On" initiatives.   

       Note also that modern PC operating systems generally support hibernation (even without wacky laptop hardware).
egnor, May 04 2001
  

       Take the linux patch linked to above, and modify the shutdown process to keep restoring your ideal desktop state. Done.
tenhand, May 04 2001
  

       Someone I knew here at work used to rant about how BeOS had only a seven second bootup and was even more stable than *nix.
StarChaser, May 05 2001
  

       [Egnor] - I think the problem here is you have not experienced what I am describing properly... you have only seen a software emulated version... which requires the software/os to boot before it can restore from harddrive.   

       The version I am describing is contolled by the bios and allows a restore of a system to a full AWAKE state in about 3 seconds.   

       The link you gave jumps to a slection of WIBNI comments, where as this is a complete sensible, workable and saleable idea.
CasaLoco, Jan 14 2002
  

       Would this need to accomodate all the little things that change (registry keys and all that rot) that often change in a machines OS during normal day-to-day use? Would the image need to change, say, after an application is installed?
bristolz, Jan 14 2002
  

       The problem is not that the OS has to load from hard disk on startup, but that there are 5,379 device drivers, DLL's, etc. that have to be started as well. For whatever reason, most of these seem to be designed so that attempting to do a 'hibernate', even on hardware which supports it, will hose the machine (since any hardware that was initialized will become uninitialized when the system is powered down, and the drivers can't figure out how to fix it when it's powered back up).   

       Hard drives are pretty fast these days; the problem isn't one of reading the data off the disk. The problem is with code that spends a ridiculous time "thinking".
supercat, Jan 15 2002
  

       I think the best option is... leaving the PC powered all time and use the suspend option. The problem is noise.
NickHunter, Jun 14 2003
  

       I just leave mine on all the time. I reboot only when I change kernels or something.
galukalock, Jun 15 2003
  

       [bristolz] is right - a system where "The Image would not be created every time you shutdown" will snarf things up royally, especially entities like the Windows registry which lives both in ram and on disc.   

       As the OS can write to the disc, you need to save the ram every powerdown too so that they match. If you want to start afresh from a given 'good' ram image each boot, you also need to keep an image of the hard drive.. image both (ram and hd) or neither, not just one of them.
benjamin, Jan 29 2004
  

       //The problem is noise.//   

       Invest a couple of hundred dollars (if that) and convert to a noiseless computer - or, if you build your own, simply make it noiseless from scratch. Trust me, it's wonderful.
Detly, Jan 29 2004
  

       Of course, using VMWare you're able to do just this, and feel safer when running XP (on top of linux) :)
Rcomian, Jan 29 2004
  

       Rcomian, I was searchign the net for this and I had exactly your idea in mind, I unfortunatly have no experiance in running Linux. Could you (or anyone else) reccomend a small copy of linux that would be suitable for this application (alone)?
k0mp0, Apr 18 2004
  


 

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