What does memory dumping mean?

Question

I installed a program and when i started it the screen went black and a bunch of writing came up and part of it was beginning physical memory dump and then it shut down. Does it damage the computer when it does that?

Answer 1

First, it does NOT damage your computer.

Second, memory dump is basically a tool that takes a snapshot of the entire content of your memory, and dumps all that into a single file. Say you have 1 gigabyte of physical memory and 1.5 gigabyte of virtual memory, then a "full memory dump" will be 2.5 gigabyte in size, but Windows usually just do a partial dump of the program that generated the problem. Theoretically, if the problem is serious enough, the programmers can take that dump and analyze that, plus other info, to trace the cause of the problem.

Basically, the program you ran somehow accessed some memory that does NOT belong to it. This could caused by many different things, from bad programming to malicious intent and everything in between. The net result is the operating system decided that it can no longer run safely, thus, it dumped the important stuff to a file, then restart the machine.

Answer 2

When your computer crashed, it was trying to save some of your data by "dumping" the contents of the memory to the hard drive. This basically means that what is sitting in the RAM at the time of system failure is copied to the hard drive before the computer shuts down, and can be used to look for the cause later on.

Answer 3

hello there,
Physical dumping in win2k has the same troubleshooting as winNT. there r many many reasons for dumping or know as Blue Screen of Death. most dumping display a message "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL". This message means two posibilities:
1. You have installed a new hardware device, and this device causes conflict.the solution is removing or disabling that ardware and re-install it again. if the hardware was the main harddisk, then u have no choice but formatting the computer and install the harddisk third pary if it's available.
2. The cash memory or the harddisk have bad sectors or physical damage. in this case re-install the operating system again to make the OS avoid the bad sector.

for more info please visit

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/winntas/tips/techrep/bsod.mspx

Answer 4

Its a fail safe to save your present data, no it wont damage your Computer but whatever the program was you loaded GET RID OF IT !.

Answer 5

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/downloads/memory_dump.html click on this and take a look..

Answer 6

I don't know, what i suggest is that you go and ask a professional about it.

Answer 7

look at this website this might help you

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314084