I dont know why you have issues with xmsdsk.

Read its readme. DO NOT load it from config.sys.

DO load it from autoexec.bat

DO use the /T option so it allocates from the top of XMS memory, and not the bottom.

xmsdsk readme wrote:

Reaction of Windows 95 with EMSDSK/XMSDSK: […]
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Reaction of Windows 95 with EMSDSK/XMSDSK:

Loading from | Autoexec.bat | Config.sys
--------------+-------------------+----------------
XMSDSK | No Problems (1) | Big Warning (2)
--------------+-------------------+----------------

(1): *** See below "More about Win95" ***
Win95 does use the 16-Bit (=compatibility) mode to access this drive
but leaves all other drives unaffected and 32-Bit access functional.
A little note:
With EMS/XMSDSK loaded you might sometimes hear about 1 to 3 seconds
of increades HD activity during startup of the Graphical User Interface.
This is normal and doesn't do anything bad.

(2):
Win95 starts up with a warning that a driver from CONFIG.SYS
reduces the system performance.
If you right-click your "Workplace" then Properties->Performance
You will see that all drives are used in compatibility mode,
which in that case DOES harm the performance.

So the solution is to put the ramdisk into your autoexec.bat and
Win95 will use this drive without any problems. Even if the size is
zero, you will only get an "unable to access" message when
trying to read from that drive for example from the Explorer.
You will have to define the size of that drive before the start of
the Graphical User Interface.

xmsdsk readme wrote:

Parameter /t can be used to tell the driver to allocate XMS memory from the top addresses instead of lower ones. Some machi […]
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Parameter /t can be used to tell the driver to allocate XMS memory from
the top addresses instead of lower ones. Some machines under Win95 hang
up when there's no free memory under 16 MBytes. It can be used too if
you have problem playing sounds under Windows. These 2 issues seem to be
related to DMA buffering.

The standard Win98 boot floppy uses a ramdisk.

ramdrive.sys tops out at 2mb in size, iirc.

wierd_w: I already tried your suggestions, and they didn't work. BTW, IIRC, the error message mentioned "VFAT."

The next time I'm at my mother's house, maybe I should try EMSDSK, but are there any Win98-based RAM drives available other than RDSK98V5?

http://manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/msdos7/ramdrive.htm

32mb

Freedos probably has a more capable one

That's good, but, since the system has 1GB RAM, I'd like at least a 128MB RAM drive. If EMSDSK doesn't work, and I don't get any other suggestions, I'd better try that out.

After tracing through https://www.mdgx.com/xptoy.htm#RD (never mind that is says XP)
I found this https://web.archive.org/web/20101231020703/ht … mdisk9xme15.zip - seems to be an actual Win9x/ME RAMDISK, not an underlying DOS one, so likely better performance

I downloaded it. Thank you. 😀