LOADALL is the common name for two different, undocumented machine instructions of Intel 80286 and Intel 80386 processors, which allow to access areas normally outside of the IA-32 API scope, like descriptor cache registers. The LOADALL for 286 processors is encoded 0Fh 05h, while the LOADALL for 386 processors is 0Fh 07h.
LOADALL notably allows to access all memory from real mode, without temporarily switching the processor into protected mode.
Programs such as RAMDRIVE (ram disk in MS-DOS), AboveDisk (a commercial package by Above Software which converted hard disk or extended memory into expanded memory), and OS/2 used LOADALL. Examination of the virtual machine monitor code in Windows/386 2.1 shows it uses both the 286 and the much less documented 386 variant.
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Last updated: 08-22-2005 07:11:40
