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Can't install RC5 on big HD (> 500Gb)

Started by eilygre, 2008.11.09, 23:03:43

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eilygre

I have bought a new PC with 4 Gb RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo and 1TB disk. Vista preinstalled.
Step 1 was to reduce the size of the Vista area. That was done with a Linux-program (GPARTED). Vista got 250 GB and works fine.
Then I wanted to install RC5. The installation program says there are no installable volumes. But I press the New volum button and LVM shows free space of ca. 350 GB. Where is the rest?
And then I press NEXT. A window with the heading: ecomstation Disk Resize Utility pops up and displaying the text: Please wait. The program is checking your partition layout....

And thats it! Nothing more happends. The PC hangs. Tried more than ones.

Any suggestions on what to do? Has it to do with the size of the disk? Should I use totaly different resizing program and then, what is the maximum size of a volum eCs can handle?

Appreciate help

Einar Lygre

BigFig

Create an unformatted primary partition, perhaps 40GB using your vista OS.  Then create the volume that ECS wants as that partition.  You'll probably have to install the boot manager at the END of free space.

Saijin_Naib

Also watch out for GPARTED it has a bad habit of overlapping partition boundaries at times. Check your partitions with PartitionMagic to ensure that they don't overlap.

kim

Quote from: BigFig on 2008.11.28, 06:43:36
Create an unformatted primary partition, perhaps 40GB using your vista OS.  Then create the volume that ECS wants as that partition.  You'll probably have to install the boot manager at the END of free space.

And if you don't want to waste one partition on OS2 Boot Manager then use AirBoot instead since it only uses the MBR.

eilygre

#4
Thank you for your answers.
I have got this answer from The eComStation Support Team:

"Yes there IS a limit at 500Gb physical disk-size.

Due to the mentioned 65536 cylinder limit in the kernel,
when used with the familiar 255 head/63 sectors/track geometry.

However, the later DANIS506 is supposed to work around that
by setting the number of sectors per track higher (like 126 or so)

I have had several reports from DFSee users that this does
not work (or at least does not always work).

I have had no personal experience with it yet
due to not having suitable hardware for testing.

This usually happens with newer SATA drives over 500Gb."


and this:

"Unfortunately, this is a troublesome configuration. eComStation can only be installed in the first 512 GB of the volume. It will not be able to access the drive beyond that. when bootable. So you would need to resize Vista and make space in the front of the disk for eComStation. But Vista and eCS do not really play nice together, so you could consider adding a seperate (smaller) disk for eCS..."


BigFig

I recently tried to create a partition in the free space of my disk2, there was 100GB of free space but LVM would not accept a number larger than 50GB.

Holger Kruth

There is an update of LVM  from IBM which is NOT included at least in RC5.

Version:   14.105
LVM SUPPORT

May 12, 2006

This package applies to:

  OS/2 Warp 4 Convenience Pack 1
  OS/2 Warp 4 Convenience Pack 2
  OS/2 Warp 4 Convenience Pack 2 Refresh
  OS/2 Warp Server for e-business
  OS/2 Warp Server for e-business Convenience Pack 1
  OS/2 Warp Server for e-business Convenience Pack 2
  OS/2 Warp Server for e-business Convenience Pack 2 Refresh

This package will update the LVM  component files of OS/2 on your boot drive with the files in this package.

This package must be installed in addition to IDEDASD package to access the full capacity of a drive greater than 512 Gb. If the package is installed on a system with a drive less than 512 Gb, it will not have any effect on the drive geometry. ...



As registered user you can get it from www.ecomstation.com .

Cheers, Holger

Saijin_Naib

Nice spot Holger! I wonder why this updated file is NOT included with the most recent RCs?

Robert Deed

It may have required too much modification to the installation to be included in the RC.. they simply may not have targeted this particular issue for the RC :)

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.12.02, 18:45:21
Nice spot Holger! I wonder why this updated file is NOT included with the most recent RCs?

RobertM

#9
eilygre,

More info on this can be found here:
http://www.os2world.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,63/topic,1173.msg9530/topicseen,1/#new

The posts in that thread, and the summary below, apply to Holger's explanation below regarding upgrading to the new LVM and DASD drivers...


Basically (to summarize the additional points), any physical disk used to boot OS/2 is limited to 512GB. Thus any disks over 512GB should be used for data partitions only - and a disk of 512GB or smaller should be used for a bootable disk (or the rest will not be seen by OS/2) - or attempted to be used as described below (for multi-OS setups).

Any non-boot disk will be limited to 2TB. The LVM docs are apparently not complete, as the DASD update that they indicate requiring, goes into more detail and spells out the fact that the 512GB physical disk limitation still exists for a bootable drive (either use 512GB or smaller boot disk, or your larger than 512GB boot disk will be seen as only 512GB)

Robert


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RobertM

#10
Hey all,
Dani sent me an answer to some of the questions we posed here about the HDD size limitation. As someone else stated earlier, it is due to the restrictions in communicating between the ADD/FLT drivers and the DASD driver. She wrote:



Hi Robert!

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 23:22:36 -0500, Robert M wrote:

>Foremost of which is an apparent limit of 2TB for a physical disk.
>We were wondering if you had any idea of where that limitation resides, and
>whether it applies to a disk being accessed using your drivers (the
>reference we found was in IBM's OS2DASD readme).

This limit applies to *all* storage units because it's a limit imposed
by the interface between *DASD.DMD and the *.ADD/.FLT drivers. Look up
topic  IOCC_EXECUTE_IO in the "Storage Device Driver Reference" for
details.


>specifies that the OS2/IBMDASD was enhanced to support 48 bit LBA modes (and
>then goes on to say that it allows accessing full drive sizes up to 2TB -
>which is far less than 48 bit LBA mode supports if memory serves).

The DASD manager issues 32 bit block addresses to the storage drivers,
regardless of their (possibly superiour) capabilities.

Ciao,
Dani




Reference information, for those interested and who dont have the Storage Device Driver Reference handy can be found here:

http://www.warpspeed.com.au/cgi-bin/inf2html.cmd?..\html\book\ddk\STORAGE.INF+29


So, that makes me wonder... does that mean these things need to be rewritten as KEE drivers? And thanks to Dani for all her work and for her quick response!

Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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eilygre

Well, well, well.

Now I have bought a new HD (250 Gb). Now I have two HDs. The one that I could not install eCs on (1 Tb), and this new one. This time I try to install RC6. But no, eCs does not see the new HD at all. Vista sees it.
So what software do I need now to continuate the process, and how to install it when I am trying to install eCs from the CD?
Appreciate help.

Einar Lygre

mobybrick

1. Try disable AHCI in your BIOS
2. When boot off eCS CD, select go to menu. Select to use Danis506 in 'Compatibility mode.'

Regards,
Moby.

Quote from: eilygre on 2008.12.07, 14:53:37
Well, well, well.

Now I have bought a new HD (250 Gb). Now I have two HDs. The one that I could not install eCs on (1 Tb), and this new one. This time I try to install RC6. But no, eCs does not see the new HD at all. Vista sees it.
So what software do I need now to continuate the process, and how to install it when I am trying to install eCs from the CD?
Appreciate help.

Einar Lygre

mobybrick

Thanks for this info Robert and Dani  :)

There are two different problems here IMHO.

1. The 2Tb liimit (discussed by Dani below)
2. The 512Gb boot drive limit

Why is there a 512Gb boot drive limit? I don't think, AFAICS, that this is caused by the 32-bit DMD problem.

Were the sources of the LVM OS2DASD.DMD ever made available?

Regards,
Moby

Quote from: RobertM on 2008.12.06, 18:44:44
Hey all,
Dani sent me an answer to some of the questions we posed here about the HDD size limitation. As someone else stated earlier, it is due to the restrictions in communicating between the ADD/FLT drivers and the DASD driver. She wrote:



Hi Robert!

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 23:22:36 -0500, Robert M wrote:

>Foremost of which is an apparent limit of 2TB for a physical disk.
>We were wondering if you had any idea of where that limitation resides, and
>whether it applies to a disk being accessed using your drivers (the
>reference we found was in IBM's OS2DASD readme).

This limit applies to *all* storage units because it's a limit imposed
by the interface between *DASD.DMD and the *.ADD/.FLT drivers. Look up
topic  IOCC_EXECUTE_IO in the "Storage Device Driver Reference" for
details.


>specifies that the OS2/IBMDASD was enhanced to support 48 bit LBA modes (and
>then goes on to say that it allows accessing full drive sizes up to 2TB -
>which is far less than 48 bit LBA mode supports if memory serves).

The DASD manager issues 32 bit block addresses to the storage drivers,
regardless of their (possibly superiour) capabilities.

Ciao,
Dani




Reference information, for those interested and who dont have the Storage Device Driver Reference handy can be found here:

http://www.warpspeed.com.au/cgi-bin/inf2html.cmd?..\html\book\ddk\STORAGE.INF+29


So, that makes me wonder... does that mean these things need to be rewritten as KEE drivers? And thanks to Dani for all her work and for her quick response!

Robert

RobertM

Quote from: mobybrick on 2008.12.07, 18:35:55
Thanks for this info Robert and Dani  :)

There are two different problems here IMHO.

1. The 2Tb liimit (discussed by Dani below)
2. The 512Gb boot drive limit

Why is there a 512Gb boot drive limit? I don't think, AFAICS, that this is caused by the 32-bit DMD problem.

My guess is that something in the loader (and possibly kernel?) needs to be changed to accommodate larger drives (for booting from) since they are responsible for initial disk access before the handoff to DASD and the IFS.

It seems, from what I have gleaned, that the disk geometry info is written (by LVM) a little differently if a physical disk is set as a non-boot volume (and then handled by *DASD appropriately to what the disk is used for and it's mapped geometry), which I am guessing is not compatible with the OS2LDR's method of initial disk access.

Maybe someone from the gang working on the new loader can clarify or correct me regarding this issue.

Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
Star Trek New Voyages
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