Author Topic: [SOLVED] Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3  (Read 7545 times)

jamiem

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My compute froze at "Loading system files. Please wait" after I told it to NOT reformat my C: drive. This is on real hardware and from floppies. What do you suggest I do?
« Last Edit: July 27, 2020, 05:20:27 pm by jamie marchant »

Dave Yeo

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2020, 07:29:17 pm »
How did you partition your drive? OS/2 needs partition boundaries to line up with cylinder boundaries.
Also what file system is C:
 

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2020, 07:51:13 pm »
My compute froze at "Loading system files. Please wait" after I told it to NOT reformat my C: drive. This is on real hardware and from floppies. What do you suggest I do?

is this after an install or an upgrade?

If so this could simply be outdated drivers loaded from the diskette, download and updated boot floppy and replace the drivers on the disk by the ones from the floppy, or roll your own boot disks as below:

https://www.elstel.org/OS2Warp/InstallUpdate.html#OwnBootDisks

BTW the boot floppy format is DOS FAT so it can be done from any system including Win10 or Linux with a USB floppy

jamiem

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2020, 08:31:49 pm »
My dos partition was made with FreeDos but then resized when I tried an old Linux distro. How do I check that it's formatted correctly?  I'll try those new drivers and edit my post/post here when I have done this.

jamiem

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2020, 10:36:02 pm »
I tried that "mod" and now I get a blank screen(well I did delete the logo) and my hard disk light stays on forever.  This is NOT an upgrade I had MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.1 on the Fat(I think it's Fat and NOT Fat32) drive before.(and FreeDos before that). This is a sort of eraish-appropriate laptop(IMB Thinkpad 380Z).

UPDATE: Riveted back to the old Disk 1 from an image I took before modifying it.

UPDATE#2: Went to a command prompt though the installer and checked the contents of disk2(which is the one where it freezes, disk2 seems to be ok). Also does not matter if I do the advanced or basic install.

UPADTE#3: Turns out that "mod" is for version 4 and I have version 3, so that's no good.

UPDATE#4: OS/2 has NOT been installed and now their is no sound in DOS, I have seen this before and it's when an OS incorrectly tries to initialize the sound card, so I guess setup was tying to probe hardware and failed, which also often leads to freezing. Latter, I'll try disabling the sound card for now and see if that works. I'll report back here after trying that.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2020, 01:11:54 am by jamie marchant »

Dave Yeo

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2020, 01:40:27 am »
My dos partition was made with FreeDos but then resized when I tried an old Linux distro. How do I check that it's formatted correctly?  I'll try those new drivers and edit my post/post here when I have done this.

You could download Dfsee, www.dfsee.com likely the DOS version, and see what it has to say, and possibly fix things. It's shareware but fully functional, the price is for excellent support.
OS/2 v3 will only install onto a FAT16 or HPFS partition. How big is the HD? IIRC, Warp V3 only supported up to 4.1 GB drive, perhaps smaller. The instructions for Warp V4 also apply to Warp V3 when it comes to updating drivers, except possibly different disks as IIRC, Warp V4 used 3 boot disks and Warp V3 used 2. Basically delete unneeded stuff, copy newer drivers over, edit config.sys (might have a different name for install) and add copyfromfloppy=1 or such. It's been a long time.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2020, 01:58:05 am »
Hi Jamie, welcome to the forum.

On the first page of the OS/2 Warp 3 installer, can you do a F3 to go to the command line and execute a "ver /r" just to know the version and release you are installing.

I also tried to document the provided "Updated Diskettes" on this wiki page. But I haven't finished it withe download links, and it will be good to know if you are installing Warp 3 or Warp 3 Connect.

Are you installing with a CD-ROM or everything with floppies? It may also be interesting to know on which hardware are you installing it, HDD size and if it is IDE or SCSI.

Regards
« Last Edit: July 26, 2020, 02:05:24 am by Martin Iturbide »
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Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2020, 02:53:04 pm »
I tried that "mod" and now I get a blank screen(well I did delete the logo) and my hard disk light stays on forever.  This is NOT an upgrade I had MS-DOS 6 and Windows 3.1 on the Fat(I think it's Fat and NOT Fat32) drive before.(and FreeDos before that). This is a sort of eraish-appropriate laptop(IMB Thinkpad 380Z).

UPADTE#3: Turns out that "mod" is for version 4 and I have version 3, so that's no good.

That technique also works in W3 and in v2.1 for that matter, I replace boot disk drivers all the time, the reason I asked is that as shipped W3 only sees hard drives of a certain size, simply because it was originally shipped in 1994 and HD's did not go above a certain size back then. The most common disk related problem when installing old versions of OS/2 onto hardware more modern that the OS itself (even computers from 1996/7/8) is that the drivers refuse to operate the hard drive because the BIOS is reporting size numbers back to the OS that the driver/OS thinks are impossible.

To fix this you need to 1) modify the drivers on the boot diskette and 2) Instruct the installer to copy the drivers from the boot diskette over the drivers the installer copied from the CD or floppy onto the hard drive because the drivers contained on the CD/Floppy install image are the same as the original, so will have the same error. This can also be done by hand by booting the modified floppy again after install and going into the command line and manually copying the files onto the drive.

This is explained in some detail in the original link.

IBM used to supply replacement driver install diskettes with fixes from FP40, but that site has sadly been taken down, but they do have a replacement driver set at: ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/ps/products/os2/fixes/v3.0warp/english-us/warpinst/ but it should be noted that this is outdated and the original method is recommended.

jamiem

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[SOVELED] Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2020, 08:43:02 pm »
Disabling the sound card fixed the issue.

Dave Yeo

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2020, 09:41:15 pm »
What sound card? I remember when I first installed Warp V3, I had a hell of a time convincing the system to use my preferred IRQ's and DMA's for my PAS, insisted on 7,7 when I wanted 10,5. Forget how it set the SB compatible part or if it did. The PAS had a SB clone on it, which was nice could use the SB in WinOS2 and the main PAS in the main system.
You may be able to add the sound card driver to config.sys now, or just load the DOS driver and only have sound in DOS.

jamiem

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #10 on: July 27, 2020, 03:06:14 am »
I don't know, IBM/CystalAudio* something? again this is a laptop, I got drivers that work fine from here: https://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Drivers/download.lenovo.com/lenovo/content/ddfm/380z.html. I'm guessing if I tried using the system disks** from there I wouldn't have top temporarily disable the sound card? I love the sci-fi sounds effects in OS/2 very fun!

** I am running out of working floppy disks, a lot of mine are getting bad sectors :P.

* It does come with a Sound Blaster Pro Emulator Dos driver.

Dave Yeo

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Re: Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2020, 08:29:19 am »
OK, I have a vague memory of slightly different versions of that chipset and each being particular about its drivers. Hopefully someone with a better memory will chine in. Which Thinkpad are you using?

jamiem

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Re: [SOLVED] Stuck at "Loading system files. Please wait" OS/2 Warp 3
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2020, 05:20:59 pm »
380Z but as I said, this issue has been fixed. Thank you for your support.