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Installation won't fix disk

Started by lpino, 2008.09.09, 03:43:46

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lpino

I re-installed  XP (again, it won't stay healthy for more that 6 months) and I lost the Boot Manager (nothing new up to here). Since I installed the eCS RC1 I upgrated the system to have only a SATA CD-ROM (DVD R/W). Using RC4 the system freezes then I tried RC5 and I get to a point that the system tells me that detected some error on the partition (disk) but it decided not to fix it...(what the hell?) and then it only gives me the choice to reboot.

I used a thrird party utility to activate the boot manager partition and surprised!!!! I got the boot manager back but I only got Windows XP listed (what the f....!!!??).

I really would like to get my OS/2 system back, any ideas?


Thanks

Saijin_Naib

You are going to need to let the install CD fix the partition error or use DFSEE to do it. Or at the very least, use DFSEE to force the OS/2 partition back onto the boot manager menu.

Radek

What the f...!!!?? Winblows, what else. It is known that XP (in fact, all Neanderthal Technology versions of winblows) modifies partitions which it was not asked to touch. This concers winblows installation (you say: "install here" and XP will foul all partitions it finds around) and also wnblows HD manager. Results:
- you lose boot manager (winblows has wiped it out)
- when you reinstall BM, then winblows will not work, eCS will not work or nothing will work at all.
The only way out is DFSee. Forcing the partitions back does not suffice, you have to fix the partitions first.

warpcafe

Hi all,

okay, first I have to admit:
The following post will not provide any help in solving the problem.

This said, let me now turn the "rant mode" on:

I simply cannot understand why people are -today,2008!!- still using the IBM BootManager *crap* although it's known (should be known!! Heck!) that it has problems with [arbitrary-operating-system-here] when there's tons of free, better, faster, smaller, prettier alternative stuff available.
Heck, BM also uses 8 megs of the disk - I know it's not much nowadays but, hey, one more partition gone.

I *strongly* (STRONGLY!!! F**K!!) recommend to get rid of it and TRY [whatever is available].

Okay, that sounds like an asshole suggestion, right? ;) Okay - listen:
1) Grab a copy of AiR-Boot by Martin Kiewitz!! http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=air-boot
2) On a blank HDD, install XP setting up the required partition
3) Install eComStation with...:
- fixing the "drive corrupt" error (=create LVM info) using dfsee (or whatever does the trick...)
- creating the required install partition
- finish the install, reboot from HDD
4) Now the status quo when booting off HDD should be: No windows.
5) Ok, boot -> into eCS obviously. Run AiR-Boot installer.
6) Reboot from HDD
7) Set up boot menu, boot options, bells and whistles.
8) Enjoy

Regarding AiR-Boot:
That thinggy provides far better features and options (does BM has these anyway?) while fitting into the MBR and having the ability of restoring itself if erased "unintentionally" by Windows...

Hope this helps (someone at least)
Cheers
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Andi

Quote from: warpcafe on 2008.09.09, 14:53:56
.....
I simply cannot understand why people are -today,2008!!- still using the IBM BootManager ......

I you really want to understand why I use the IBM boot manger - it simply works on my machines. With DOS, Win (98, 2k and XP), OS/2, eCS and Linux. And DFSee can even install it and manage it's options. Till now, no reasons to try out another one.

Saijin_Naib

#5
Wow Radek. FAIL. Linux causes the same shit, as well as BeOS in terms of IBM's boot manager. It's not terribly hard to just mark the Boot Manager as active again. In fact, XP even TELLS you (yes, on the screen) that it has detected that you are using the IBM boot manager and MUST temporarily disable it to continue installation. And then, get this, it tells you how to enable it afterwards!

Sweet jesus! How dare they hold your hand like that??!?!?!?

warpcafe

Hi Andi,

Quote from: Andi on 2008.09.09, 17:00:12
I you really want to understand why I use the IBM boot manger - it simply works on my machines. With DOS, Win (98, 2k and XP), OS/2, eCS and Linux. And DFSee can even install it and manage it's options. Till now, no reasons to try out another one.

OK... but you seem to have (gone through) a lot of experience with it (and/or multiboot environments), judging by the list of OSs... in that case, certainly, there is no need to change... me, personally, I tasted AiR-Boot and can't live without it anymore, not only for its options... and certainly I'll not be going back to IBM Boot Manager.

What puzzles me is that Mensys doesn't make an effort of including a foolproof, failsafe, *comtemporary* Bootmanager into the install process. They made a good progress regarding partitioning during install (if I look back at what it was before... phew) and I bet they just need to get concentrated on this topic to put the right parts together. Well, let's see.

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Radek

Saijin, XP doesn't need to disable BM but it does it so that you won't get BM screen during XP installation. But this is not the problem. If XP simply disabled BM and told you how to get it back after installation, so be it. But XP renders BM unusable. You cannot get it back because XP has fouled OS/2 partitions in the meantime.
I don't know whether Linux or BeOS does the same stupid thing. I have written about my own experience with installing eCS and winblows 2000 on the same HD. It is possible but you need to prevent winblows from attacking other partitions, therefore, install winblows first and eCS then. If you start with eCS then you get problems.

Saijin_Naib

Linux re-writes the MBR and screws the LVM information and BeOS does the same. I've installed Windows after the BM and only had to repair the LVM information and re-add the partitions to the BM through DFSEE or the eCS install CD. AFAIK, it does not break the BM during install but since the BM is so sensitive to LVM information it just refuses to function.

Andi

Quote from: warpcafe on 2008.09.09, 18:25:48
....What puzzles me is that Mensys doesn't make an effort of including a foolproof, failsafe, *comtemporary* Bootmanager into the install process. They made a good progress regarding partitioning during install (if I look back at what it was before... phew) and I bet they just need to get concentrated on this topic to put the right parts together. Well, let's see.
....
I don't know if Airboot is open source or freeware, nor if Win does not deactivate or destroy (W2k < SP2) it. If it is so much better than the IBM one, maybe you should talk to Jan van Wijk about that. If he is convinced about the benefits and will eventually include it in DFSee, I think chances are great, that it can be included in future eCS versions. He probably knows more about partitioning stuff as anyone else in the OS/2-eCS community.

But a lot of eCS users I think, can live perfectly well with the IBM boot manager. And as with many other eCS related topics - too less people to work on solutions.

El Vato

#10
Quote from: lpino on 2008.09.09, 03:43:46
[...]
I really would like to get my OS/2 system back, any ideas?


Thanks

Leonardo,

In any multibooting scenario where OS/2 LVM Boot Manager (LVMBM) is desired, you should create all partitions with LVMBM --yes even those for WinXX and GNU/Linux and subsequently install those other operating systems.  Not doing so will bring about frustrations *because* using the partitioning scheme of WinXX and GNU/Linux may introduce incompatibilities with OS/2's own scheme.

I have not used DFSee, mentioned here in the thread, but through experience I can corroborate with Radek's argument about the partitioning issues experienced when you allow WinXX to create its own partitions.  Further, even if you allow the LVMBM to partition the disk and subsequently install WinXX into one of those, the internal LVMBM partitioning scheme may change after the WinXX installation.  Accordingly to be able to reassign an partition to your WinXX easier, your initial WinXX installation should be onto a formatted FAT32 partition --so as to manipulate WinXX's hidden BOOT.INI file accordingly.  After your multiboot machine is functioning the way you want, you can convert the FAT32 partition to NTFS if you so desire.

This is a possible scenario:  using LVMBM create a primary partition for WinXX and an logical partition for OS/2.  Your LVMBM will, of course, occupy another primary partition and you may install it at the beginning or at the end of your hard disk.  If you still have free space and desire additional partitions for you WinXX ans/or OS/2, create them with LVM under OS/2 or booting from LVM enabled diskettes or CD-media.

In case WinXX has touched you hard disk Master Boot Record (MBR) (quite likely since you are having issues under OS/2 LVMBM), you may remove the WinXX tainted MBR by using the DOS (or Win98) boot floppy (and or CD --see freeDOS) and execute:

FDISK  /MBR

and it will remove the offending modification.  The former will also apply when one needs to blow away the Grand Unified Boot Loader (GRUB) --common under GNU/Linux-- if it has touched your MBR.

Now, even when allowing LVMBM to create and modify your partitions, during your multiboot efforts OS/2's LVMBM and/or either of you partitions may disappear.  No problem.  Since LVMBM is the only partitioning tool you used, all you have to do is to boot with your OS/2 CD-media and go to an OS/2 command prompt and type:

LVM

subsequently you can reassign the LVMBM as active and/or reassign as bootable the WinXX and/or OS/2 partitions from within that utility.  Warning: Cloud computing in action below  :D:

cat >> LVM_snapshot << EOF
EOF
and we are back safe again on OS/2 World's forum.

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.09, 20:06:41
Linux re-writes the MBR [...]

A little knowledge is dangerous, Saijin_Naib  ;)

GNU/Linux will overwrite the MBR *only* if you allow it.  The default is to modify the MBR so as not to allow an beginner user to shoot her/his foot and be left with an unbootable operating system.  On the other hand, engaging in multibooting operating systems implies a mature user.  As such you must read and understand the installation screens *before* posting your own FUD that fits conveniently within your own bias.  Accordingly, you have the option not to mess your MBR and to install GRUB to the primary/logical partition where your GNU/Linux has been installed.

Like Andi, I use LVMBM to boot OS/2, GNU/Linux, WinXX, and Solaris.  It is a powerful but somewhat complex and generally not well understood utility.  Hence, a little knowledge is dangerous if one talks about it without understanding its full functionality and capabilities.

lpino

Thank you all for your help. I discovered what the problem was. As I mentioned I used a third party tool to activate the BM partition. Well it seems that tool messed up the geometry of the disk and the MBR.

I followed the advice of using DFSEE and with it I was able to fix the problems (great tool).

I have been using OS/2 since v.2.0 and I know my way around pretty well, but you always come across new challenges.

Anyway, now I have another problem. Booting stops on OS2DASD.DMD. Remember that I took all IDE drives out and left only SATA ones, I even turned off the IDE chips from the BIOS.
Since my installation is RC1 and knowing that some development has been done on the SATA grounds I decided to boot to RC5 and see if I could update the system without doing an installation from scratch.

The system booted up fine and the installation went fine. I seleted advance installation and I didn't format the partition (of course). Then the system told me it was looking for installed files (or something like that). Well it was doing that for 43 minutes and then crashed (I was reading a book in the mean time).

So back to square one. Now I could replace the drivers by hand from the RC5 disk. I hope it has the option to go to command line. Is there an option to do that?

Thanks again

Saijin_Naib

you should be able to alt+f1 at the boot blob and go to the command line (f2?). From there you should replace the current drivers with the newest DANI drivers and you may be able to boot. Also, use this time to run a checkdisk if you can. I've had that fix a non-booting install for me even though the preboot check said everything was fine.

lpino

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.10, 16:32:29
you should be able to alt+f1 at the boot blob and go to the command line (f2?). From there you should replace the current drivers with the newest DANI drivers and you may be able to boot. Also, use this time to run a checkdisk if you can. I've had that fix a non-booting install for me even though the preboot check said everything was fine.

The problem with that approach is that you need the system to boot up to the command line. Remember that process will use the RC1 drivers, because that's what the system has. You need to boot to a command line using the new drivers and that's why you need to boot from RC5 CD.

Thanks

Saijin_Naib

Ooo, right. Yeah, nvm then ;0 You can probably work from the CD easier anyway.