Hey security researchers!

I've released BareMetal-RAM-Dumper — a low-level x86 utility for dumping physical RAM directly to disk, designed for Cold Boot Attack research.

What it does: • Custom 512-byte bootloader (no OS needed) • Boots via BIOS Legacy CSM • Switches to Unreal Mode to access 32-bit physical memory • Dumps RAM in 32KB chunks directly to USB drive • BIOS INT 0x15 E820 for safe memory map parsing • Real-time progress indicator

Cold Boot Attack Use Case: Freeze a laptop's RAM to -60°C → quickly reboot from USB → capture full memory contents for forensic analysis & crypto key recovery

How it works: 1. Stage1: 512-byte boot sector (loads Stage2 via INT 0x13) 2. Stage2: Main logic (memory detection, unreal mode, disk writes) 3. Writes to LBA 64+ on boot drive

Warning: This overwrites data starting at sector 64! Use a dedicated blank USB.

Built with pure Assembly (NASM) — no bloat, direct hardware access

GitHub: https://github.com/pIat0n/BareMetal-RAM-Dumper License: AGPL-3.0

Perfect for: Forensic researchers Security auditors testing cold boot resilience Students learning low-level x86 Penetration testers

Feedback & improvements welcome!

> successfully tested

Could you elaborate on this? What device did you test on, what was the test procedure, and what was the outcome?

Does it stop EFI from running first? I'd think that EFI would be clobbering a whole lot of RAM.