Author Topic: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer  (Read 15791 times)

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #15 on: March 23, 2020, 02:46:07 pm »
Good idea Ivan. I did test that. But my computer is much newer and it boots the restored image to a TRAP screen. That would be expected as the machine is much too new to run eCS 1.2R. In order to TRAP, it needs to run the OS/2 loader and I load enough of the kernel to display a TRAP screen.
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Neil Waldhauer

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #16 on: March 25, 2020, 02:49:03 pm »
I made a drive on my own computer. Of course it cannot boot my computer, but I sent it to them, and it doesn't work on their computer in the same way: does not even find the OS/2 loader. Using Sysintx.com made no difference.

At this point, I think both the partition and drive images are so particular that they must be made on the original computer. I am now trying to teach them to make a clone using DFSee. They hit the error for target drive smaller than source drive, but didn't understand the message from DFSee, "Write error on 127 sector(s) at sector 0x000000000001f7f82. Continue the restore?"
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ivan

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #17 on: March 25, 2020, 05:04:52 pm »
If there is a disk problem it might be an idea to ask them to download the disk manufactures disk tools and run them against the disk, that will show up any bad sectors on the drive which will cause problems when writing a disk image.  As far as I know (I could be wrong), but the only thing that stops OS/2 from booting is incorrect disk drivers.  I assume you made your disk image using only the Dani IDE driver not the SATA ones that won't work if the machines are as old as you indicate.

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but I have been caught out when updating some old machine tool computers and had to build a machine to be able to create a bootable image before updating.

Martin Vieregg

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #18 on: March 26, 2020, 11:40:01 pm »
You can send an E-Mail to the dfsee author, he should read this and perhaps he can explain how to do. Normally, saving a partition with DFSee and restoring it on a remote computer should work. The author Jan van Wijk is very friendly and he helped me already. DFsee is programmed without using OS-specific APIs, so it should work from an OS/2 to a Window machine without problems.

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2020, 12:11:50 am »
The disks are fine. Getting the end user to use DFSee correctly is hard.

I now can get them to the point of "OS/2 is unable to operate the hard drive".

At this point, I may have to get some actual hardware.
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Pete

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #20 on: March 27, 2020, 01:00:05 am »
Hi Neil

The "OS/2 is unable to operate the hard drive" can often mean that the drive letter has got screwed up somehow ie installation may have been to partition/volume D: but, for whatever reason, during boot the drive letter D: now refers to another partition/volume.

Are there other disks installed causing this problem?


Regards

Pete



Neil Waldhauer

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #21 on: March 27, 2020, 01:42:09 am »
I'm guessing the remote user did something wrong with DFSee. I think he imaged the good drive, then restored to a smaller drive.

Then he did some other stoff.

DFSee reports "Pid03=   WARNING : Bootable JFS or HPFS driveletter mismatch BPB versus LVM!"
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Neil Waldhauer

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Re: How to make a disk drive for a distant computer
« Reply #22 on: March 30, 2020, 03:43:16 pm »
I think the original image made by DFSee was corrupt. Apparently if I wipe the drive first, my procedure works. I'll post again if it doesn't work in the field.

It's a lot simpler to make and restore whole drive images. I wonder how bad it is to restore a 40 GB image to an 80 GB drive?

And in another unrelated note, it seems easier than ever to support 20 year old computer hardware. Everything I need is available, as long as I'm not too picky. Refurbished seems to mean they wiped it off after picking it out of the dumpster.
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