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OS/2 - Technical => Setup & Installation => Topic started by: defender on 2007.09.15, 00:15:27

Title: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: defender on 2007.09.15, 00:15:27
Hello everybody,

since a hard disk crash I was away from OS/2 quite a long time. Now I realized that I still have a partition with OS/2 Warp 4 on it, which used to have the drive letter C:. Now, due to a new installation of my whole system, this drive letter changed to D:, since it is a primary partition on a second hard drive now. OS/2 starts to boot, but can't load any drivers since it always wants to access C:\OS2\BOOT\...

Is there a way to reanimate this old installation and tell OS/2 that it remains on drive D: now? A new installation seems not to be possible, the installation program gives me no option to install it on D:

Any help? For old time sake, I would be glad to use my favorate OS again...

Thanks a lot in advance!

Andi
Title: Re: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: RobertM on 2007.09.15, 23:06:40
You can re-assign the drive letters (using LVM) so that your current Drive D is Drive C and your current Drive C is something else...

The other option would be a lot of editting of various files to make them point to Drive D (which would be a MAJOR hassle) - some of which I believe include INI files that are not human readable (like OS2.ini and OS2SYS.ini)

I'd pick the first option...

-Robert

Title: Re: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: Andi on 2007.09.17, 14:10:27
For older (non LVM) systems you can edit config.sys, os2.ini and os2sys.ini. The ini files are in \os2\. and they are 'hidden' and 'system' (attrib -r -s -h * /s). You need a hex editor with SearchAndReplace for that. Replace C:\ with D:\, ignore case but don't omit the backslash. It's not the elegant way, but it should work (read - it worked for me but no gurantee).

Don't forget to make a backup copy before.

I think I've read that Daniela Engert had done this and it work for her too. Maybe google will find her post.
Title: Re: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: Ben on 2007.09.17, 16:27:27
Do all the above.

And when you have that done go into X:\OS2\INSTALL\BOOTDISK and run "SYSINSTX.COM" or it simply will not work.

I've switched OS/2 boot drives many times over the years, it is do-able.
Title: Re: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: defender on 2007.09.27, 16:58:27
Thanks to everybody! I will try to follow your instructions!

What I'm wondering right now:

Why does the Warp4 installation program give me no option to install OS/2 on the *primary* partition of the second hard drive? Is there a specific reason for that? That would overwrite my current OS/2 installation, but I wouldnt really mind that... just wondering...

Title: Re: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: RobertM on 2007.09.28, 01:05:31
Quote from: defender on 2007.09.27, 16:58:27
Thanks to everybody! I will try to follow your instructions!

What I'm wondering right now:

Why does the Warp4 installation program give me no option to install OS/2 on the *primary* partition of the second hard drive? Is there a specific reason for that? That would overwrite my current OS/2 installation, but I wouldnt really mind that... just wondering...



IIRC it is a matter of where the machine supports booting (and I don't recall the PC750 supporting that method). But, you may be able to install bootmanager on the primary HDD and then select a partition on the secondary drive as installable. Also, I believe i had a problem with installing on a partition that was too big on the PC750... I think I kept my boot partition to something under a gig. Also, the primary partition should be at the beginning of freespace (with the only thing before it being BootManager if installed on the particular drive).

-Robert
Title: Re: Drive letter changed - how to start old OS/2 installation
Post by: defender on 2007.09.29, 19:16:01
Well, I actually *have* a bootmanager installed (AirBoot), so I don't want install OS/2's own Bootmanager in addition... Bad thing that OS/2 won't install just anywhere and let *me* care of how to boot it in the end...