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Troubles installing Warp 4

Started by Night_Rider, 2008.05.22, 23:31:35

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Night_Rider

Hi, All!
Recently I've decided to try, what kind of system is OS/2 :)
Really, i had to install it to run old DOS program in graphics mode.
So, i took package, WARP4 and started installation.
Computer is something like 300 MHz Intel, 10 Gb hdd, CD+FDD, Etherlink III networking card.
I wrote 3 floppies, and that's where weird stuff started. Standard OS/2 image recording program didn't work, so I had to use WinImage instead. I booted up (oh, God, i have fed that computer with series of 3 floppies 50 times that day, w/o exagerating). When installation process started, it said that os/2 need at least 175 Mb and that there's no such a big partitition. But there was 2 FAT32 partititions, both greater than a Gb!
I have erased everithyng with PC-DOS FDISK and made 1 big partitition,(1st attempt) 1 500 Mb p. (2nd attempt). No result. It keeps saying "partitition too small". And it writes on the right that it's 20Gb!!!! And Non-DOS!
I tried different BIOS address settings - CHS, Large, LBA. No result. I've erased all partititions, let him to make himself as he wants. Installer said, that it created all needed partititions. Reboot. And again. There's no at least 175 Mb partitition.
So, i didn't manage to install it.
I've made floppies several times, i've changed FDD, HDD, CD-ROM. No effect.
Then, I took other distriburive, OS/2 Server 4.5 for...
It installed correctly, but, after reboot, it hanged(cpu state list or reg's appeared, with a string like "error in doscall1.dll" or something like this.
I reinstalled it again, with no network adapters (i mean, hardware present, but driver not installed). It worked correctly. 1280*1024. That's a pleasure on a 20" LCD :)
Then I installed network adapter, rebooted and it hanged again the same way :)
(those times I used integrated network adapter). After this, I've installed EtherLinkIII, but the same is happening.
Furthermore, it doesn't see my MS-DOS partititions!!! I have made some with FDISK, formatted them, they're holding info, accesible, etc, but OS/2 doesn't see them.
Partititions made with OS/2 LVM seen in DOS as Non-DOS.
What to do?
I want to install OS/2 server so much :)
And, at last, is it possible to purchase latest os/2 native release? I mean, os/2. not ecs?


ddan

Hello Night_Rider,

First, know that installing plain Warp 4 can be an exercise in frustration
even with long experience. It's not for the faint of heart, those lacking in
patience, or the easily discouraged. Sounds as though you're game, heh, heh.

I strongly suggest finding a 2 or 4G drive to experiment on, because
otherwise, to use the full drive, you must get a new .ADD driver. One can
supposedly add this to the diskettes that the CD makes, however, with 9 years
of OS/2 experience, I've never actually managed to install plain Warp 4 on a
partition larger than 4G. (Partly from lack of trying...) There are updated
install diskettes (#'s 1 and 2, actually the second and third) with these
drivers. Get warp4iu1.EXE and warp4iu1.EXE from:
http://www.os2site.com/sw/upgrades/boot/index.html
Presumably those execute on a DOS system, otherwise you'll need an OS/2 system
before you can install OS/2...

OR more simply, make a 2G partition at the start of your 10G drive. With the
older .ADD you can then make use more partitions of up to 8G each. On the
running system, you can then install the much superior Dani drivers from:

You need at least DANIS506.ADD:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/ssystem/drivers/storage/danis506r185.zip

And should probably use:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/ssystem/drivers/storage/daniatapi040.zip

Also this one FOR NON-LVM systems only:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2//system/drivers/storage/danidasd144.zip

Place all of those in c:\os2\boot (assuming c: is the boot drive). In
CONFIG.SYS, REM out the IBM drivers that they're replacing. (This becomes a
bit confusing. But apparently it's REAL old-fashioned installation fun that
you're after, huh?)

A small boot partition is desirable in any case because you can then transfer
it to another physical drive with "xcopy c: d: /h /o /t /s /e /r /v" for a
complete backup of current installation. That can even be done while the
system is running, though it usually beeps at you because of some locked
files, but it'll work. To facilitate this, install Boot Manager at initial
installation, and later make another partition bootable.

You don't specify whether you're trying with Warp 4 to install on a FAT

>>> SINCE YOU HAVE 4.5, YOU'RE BETTER OFF USING IT! Has all the function of
Warp 4, but as its name says, is CONVENIENT. There are some gotchas unique to
it, but no real drawbacks for DOS use, and it's far easier to put on larger
drives.

LVM is a separate tangle. Perhaps you can explain more. What I'm thinking is
that you haven't correctly set up the FAT volumes in LVM. (I'm far from being
an expert on LVM.) Sounds as though you've made partitions, but NOT volumes.
The installation program did all that automatically for the boot volume.

Night_Rider

Thank you for reply. I began writing my reply at home; but i am at work now, later i'll copypaste it.

Radek

A few recommendations:
(1) If you can then start with a clean disk (no partitions at all) and do everything from OS/2. Set the disk to LBA mode (you will see the LBA addressable 8 GB of the HD, you will see more later, after installing a better HD driver).
(2) I am not sure whether PC DOS FDISK has made something wrong with your MBR. (I am speaking about the "non DOS" pratitions with wrong size.) In the end, PC DOS is not the same as MS DOS so that I cannot exclude it. I had the best experience with DOS 5 (MS DOS) FDISK. Delete all partitions with this FDISK. Ignore senseless partition sizes, the FDISK does not understand well big partitions but it is able to delete them flawelessly :)
(3) Another problem can be PnP. Disable PnP during installation.
(4) Next problem can be the CD ROM driver. Let us suppose you can read CD (from the installer).
(5) Start the installation, select "Advanced Installation" and you get OS/2 FDISK. Create a 2 GB partition at the start of the disk, make it bootable, save changes and quit. This will cause restart. Next time, you select your partition for installation.
(6) Install bare bones OS/2. Format the partition HPFS. Do not install anything you can install later. Install only standard drivers related to your machine and offered by the installer. Do not install network (this can be done later) and sound (this also can be done later). Do not install APM, PCMCIA, etc.
(7) Install HD driver. You need the files mentioned by ddan. Restart. Now, you should see the whole HD and you can create additional partitions.
(8) If you have a video driver for your video card, then the driver is GRADD most likely. You will need to install FP5 at least for Warp 4 (you should install the fixpack at any rate to get rid of certain bugs in the plain system), you should not need fixpacks for Warp 4.5
(9) Now, it's time to install so far not installed parts of the system.

You should pass both with Warp 4 and Warp 4.5 Note that the diskette producing program on the Warp 4 CD is a DOS program. The program can be started directly from the CD. Therefore, you can put your CD into some machine, prepare 3 diskettes, open a DOS session, and run instcd (or cdinst - I don't know right now) from the root dir of your CD. Note that the machine must have a standard, ATAPI diskette drive, not a USB one or some extra drive, which needs a special driver.

ddan

The network driver hang is puzzling; in my experience, even older (PCI) ones always work IF the matching hardware is present, and bail out gracefully if not. However, some drivers will hang if it isn't. So first you need to determine that the driver matches the card. That isn't easy because the names in the files rarely match what's printed on the card. I used a 3C905 card (very common) here before switching to on-board NIC, but knew ahead of time that I'd need it, and had it ready on floppy. THIS MAKES IT EASY TO SEE THE NAME OF THE NEW DRIVER, otherwise you have a confusing list of similar names. I'd advise getting EL90X.OS2 from:
http://www.os2warp.be/nicpak/files/3com.zip
to be sure you have a recent one. Put it on floppy, then choose "Other adapters" in MPTS setup, point it to "A:", and be sure to note the name to find it after the files are copied.

With a 3COM card you should have a line in CONFIG.SYS resembling:
DEVICE=C:\IBMCOM\MACS\EL90X.OS2

It's possible you have crossed interrupts, or wrong BIOS setup. Try re-arranging interrupts in BIOS, at least.

I'm assuming that you removed all NICs in MPTS setup before adding one.

saborion2

#5
Hi "Night_Rider";

I was wondering if you would not save yourself some "headaches" by selecting the alternative "UpdCD" installation process for OS/2 Warp 4.0; here is the link to the information that describes to how installation process works:

Quote

Introduction
With UpdCD you can incorporate updated files (e.g. fixpaks) into your installation CD. In this way you will be able to install a refreshed version of OS/2 on modern systems. You do not have to reinstall fixpaks if you have used selective install. You can boot and install right from the CD. You can incorporate 3rd party products into the CD. Interested? Read on!

Working principle
UpdCD scans your original installation CD-ROM and updates all the files which you provide. Some of the files on the CD can be updated with a simple copy command, but most of them reside in packed (a sort of zip) and zip files and they require some more processing (packing/unpacking). The current version of UpdCD supports updates of single, packed (bundled) or zipped files, which makes it possible to incorporate base OS/2, Device Driver, Printer, MPTS, TCP/IP, PEER, Netware Requester Fixpaks, updates for Feature Installer, Java and new products like TCP/IP 4.x into the CD. The updated CD-ROM is created on your hard disk and can be converted to an ISO image or to a real installation CD-ROM....

http://xenia.sote.hu/~kadzsol/rexx/sajat/updcd.htm


Good luck. And, these are the reasons why it was stated earlier in one of these threads there is a need for an "Automatic Update" feature for OS/2.

SAB

Night_Rider

2ddan:
QuoteI've never actually managed to install plain Warp 4 on a
partition larger than 4G.
On the second attempt, i thought that it might not be supporting large partitions, so i made one 500 meg partition, only one on the whole hdd. The same - no result.

About new installation floppies - thank you, i'll try them a bit later. No problem if those programs are os/2 programs - Server 4.5 is still installed :)
QuoteOR more simply, make a 2G partition at the start of your 10G drive.
As i said, i tried 2 Gb 1 Gb 500 Mb part's.
QuoteBut apparently it's REAL old-fashioned installation fun that
you're after, huh?)
Sure ;)
QuoteYou don't specify whether you're trying with Warp 4 to install on a FAT
As I told earlier, installation program doesn't let me. I choose "advanced installation", then it says about small partition (tried empty hdd, 2, 1, 0.5 partitions, unformatted and formatted as FAT with PC-DOS).
Quote>>> SINCE YOU HAVE 4.5, YOU'RE BETTER OFF USING IT! Has all the function of
Warp 4, but as its name says, is CONVENIENT. There are some gotchas unique to
it, but no real drawbacks for DOS use, and it's far easier to put on larger
drives.
I'd like to, but i have only warp 4 legal copy, i can experiment with others, but i can't use them permanently on work.
And, 4.5 hangs on the boot (registers list is shown on the boot) when i install network card driver. Without it OS/2 works. And in 4.5 Server it doesn't see FAT partitions...I have made these with DOS Fdisk, formatted properly, there's info, etc. But OS/2 doesn't recognize them as FAT partitions (volumes). Otherwise, partitions set up with OS/2 LVM and formatted as FAT with OS/2 aren't recognised by DOS'es.
As I called this situation, "OS/2 and DOS treat 'FAT partition' different ways" :)

2Radek:
Quote(1) If you can then start with a clean disk (no partitions at all) and do everything from OS/2. Set the disk to LBA mode (you will see the LBA addressable 8 GB of the HD, you will see more later, after installing a better HD driver).
That's what i've tried from the second installation till 39'th.
Warp says that it created partitions, after reboot - volumes&HPFS, after reboot it reports the same "too small partition" about his self-made partitions again. On the right, where it reports size of partitions, it says that it created 20 Gb part. on 10 Gb hdd :) I have tried Large, CHS, LBA each time. No effect.
Quote(2) I am not sure whether PC DOS FDISK has made something wrong with your MBR. (I am speaking about the "non DOS" pratitions with wrong size.) In the end, PC DOS is not the same as MS DOS so that I cannot exclude it. I had the best experience with DOS 5 (MS DOS) FDISK. Delete all partitions with this FDISK. Ignore senseless partition sizes, the FDISK does not understand well big partitions but it is able to delete them flawelessly Smiley
I tried those PC-dos made partitions with Windows and MS-DOS. Those are correct FAT ones. PC-DOS handles big partitions well.(7.0ver).
Quote(3) Another problem can be PnP. Disable PnP during installation.
You mean, "Plug and Play" setting in BIOS setup? I disabled it in the very beginning.
Quote(4) Next problem can be the CD ROM driver. Let us suppose you can read CD (from the installer).
CD media is accesible from MS-DOS; I have tried EVERYTHING :)
I have changed some CD-ROM's either.
Quote(5) Start the installation, select "Advanced Installation" and you get OS/2 FDISK. Create a 2 GB partition at the start of the disk, make it bootable, save changes and quit. This will cause restart. Next time, you select your partition for installation.
AGAIN. I have chosen advanced installation. It shows me LVM, not fdisk in Warp 4. In Server 4.5 it does the same, but i have no problems with install there! Except network card.
In Warp 4 it says about small partition just after "advanced" choosing. And it reports there wrong sizes. When it creates part's himself, after reboot, he says the same.
6-7: I have np with it in 4.5. In warp 4 i doesn't get to these steps, it gets stuck before.
QuoteNote that the diskette producing program on the Warp 4 CD is a DOS program.
So...?
Quoteherefore, you can put your CD into some machine, prepare 3 diskettes, open a DOS session, and run instcd (or cdinst - I don't know right now) from the root dir of your CD. Note that the machine must have a standard, ATAPI diskette drive, not a USB one or some extra drive, which needs a special driver.
In Warp 4 it doesn't work, I had to write images myself. I am sure that i've wrote correct images - their names are in BAT file instcd.
I have completely standard IBM-compatible machine.
2ddan
QuoteThe network driver hang is puzzling
I'm amazed myself :)
I am sure that i have Etherlink III card and that i have chosen this one during installation.
But it just hangs during boot :( Maybe i'll manage to make screenshots later..
QuoteThe network driver hang is puzzling
Yes i did. I even laughed after "Cannot remove "No network card as there's protocols associated with it"  :)
Quote2saborion2:
Thank you for info.

To all:
Hardware is not corrupted - Windows and Linux installed just well. As 4.5 before i added NC :)
I am newbie in OS/2 - it was my second attempt to install it ( i mean 'attempt' generaly; this time i have installed it more than 30 times :-$)
But i have a lot of experience with MS-DOS&Win so i think i'll manage with your help :)



Pete

Hi Night_Rider

Something very wrong somewhere...

You state:

"AGAIN. I have chosen advanced installation. It shows me LVM, not fdisk in Warp 4. In Server 4.5 it does the same, ..."


Warp4 does not have LVM, it is not part of the Warp4 distro.

LVM arrived with 4.50 - possibly included in a later fixpack, maybe 14 or 15 - sometime around 1999/2000 I think.


If you are getting LVM appear during a Warp4 install then something is very wrong.


Regards

Pete


ddan

I suggest a fresh start with Warp 4. Forget all you've done, if you can: it's not working.

From notes written back when I was flailing with Warp 4:

- Hard drives (the boot partition anyway) are constrained to between 500M for
adequate space, and 2.1G because of a limitation carried over from BIOS. 1G is
more than adequate for a boot partition, and can make use of otherwise
obsolete HDs. -- HIGHLY advise a 2.1G or less drive for your first attempts!

Procedure outline, starting from blank hard drive:
- Install all hardware and get it to boot _from the hard drive_ with any
version of plain DOS. This will eliminate many of the most maddening unknowns.
Initially necessary in any case to run CDINST.BAT to make boot floppies.
- Boot OS/2 from floppies.
- HPFS will out-do FAT over 500M, highly recommended. "Do not accept drive"
and run FDISK if necessary.

>>> Apparently here is where things go awry.

- After re-boot, choose "Advanced", and HPFS. Grinding starts.
- Installation prompts should be obvious, except regarding TCP/IP. If your
exact NIC isn't listed, choose "No adapter" which DOES install all but the NIC
hardware driver, and it's easy to install that later. Supposedly, you can
install "File and Print Sharing" later too, but it's best skipped entirely
until you have some familiarity with OS/2.
- AT THIS POINT, it should boot OS/2 from the hard drive. However, frequently
this doesn't occur: FDISK somehow doesn't write the Master Boot Record. In
this case, boot from the floppies again; hit F3 to go to command line; switch
to the CD drive. Change to x:\OS2IMAGE\DISK_2, then run "FDISK /newmbr"; exit
with Ctrl-Alt-Del, and it should now boot as normal from HD (don't be alarmed
if Boot Manager doesn't show, though; it's disabled until installation is
completed).

ddan

I'm back. Have a habit of hitting Alt-S in my normal editor to save file,
which in the online editor does save, but not exactly as I wish. Anyway...

Back to going awry. IF your drive boots with DOS, then it just about HAS TO
boot with OS/2. I've never seen that method fail. SO, I suggest you install
DOS on a 2G partition, check that it actually boots, and then resume with W4,
but choosing HPFS as outlined (unless you have need FAT for DOS dual-boot).

IF you can't get the above to work, then we've got a real mystery.

ddan

OH, HEY. As Pete nearly pointed out, a major clue here is that you probably
used this drive with LVM! THAT IS DIFFICULT TO GET RID OF! I'm pretty sure
that W4 FDISK will NOT overwrite whatever LVM puts on there. (Same problem
with GRUB for Linux.)

YOU DEFINITELY NEED a DOS 6.22 boot disk to run its FDISK to get rid of either
of those. Nothing else that I tried (XP, 98 with the new FDISK, W4, Linux)
will remove them. DOS 6.22 is dumb enough it'll overwrite anything. (Probably
DFSEE would work, but it'd be simpler to download a 6.22 boot disk.)

I wouldn't bother trying anything else until you've got the drive booting with
plain DOS 6.22.

obiwan

Knowing what I'm doing, on hardware I know will work, having done it before dozens of times, if I install Warp 4 properly from the boxed media and apply the IBM fixpaks, I have spent enough time that I could have earned the price of eComStation, possibly even a few times. Add any single factor such as a "large" disk drive of 10MB, or not knowing 1 or 2 of the things I know about OS/2, and this just increases exponentially.

Not to spoil the fun or anything. My point is, if you enjoy this, and the helpers here do too, great, enjoy the party. Just, if it were myself, I would finish this installation wishing I could have all those hours of my life back. If I didn't have the experience at it I do, I probably would not be able to finish it at all. The very best way to install Warp 4 these days is to forget it and buy eComStation.


saborion2

Re:

Quote

Not to spoil the fun or anything. My point is, if you enjoy this, and the helpers here do too, great, enjoy the party. Just, if it were myself, I would finish this installation wishing I could have all those hours of my life back. If I didn't have the experience at it I do, I probably would not be able to finish it at all. The very best way to install Warp 4 these days is to forget it and buy eComStation.


Is is not grappling with the technicalities that are encountered in computing (Going Boldly - Where None Has Gone Before....) what being a "geek" is all about. Perhaps, these installation issues among others are the reasons why IBM must have all but abandoned OS/2.

Personally, I do not recall experiencing these installation problems during installation of OS/2 on an 380ED IBM Thinkpad some ten or more years ago.

Regards.

SAB

obiwan

Quote from: saborion2 on 2008.05.24, 02:06:32
Is is not grappling with the technicalities that are encountered in computing (Going Boldly - Where None Has Gone Before....) what being a "geek" is all about.

Oh, sure. It can be fun, and you learn from it. I'm just saying, if the goal is to get it installed, one should be warned, eComStation really is well worth the price when you factor the time and work required for installation alone. It should be considered a more expensive option to install Warp these days.

There are plenty of technicalities to grapple with after that, anyway.

ddan

While I agree about eComstation being MUCH more fun, Night_Rider states right
off that his purpose is to learn about OS/2. That's why I'm trying to help.

Warp 4 installation CAN go smoothly, but there are numerous gotchas that give
no warning or clues. A drive that won't boot after installation appeared to go
smoothly is typical. I usually go to command line before the first real boot,
and use FDISK /newmbr, because often something there just doesn't work.

There's much to be gained by fooling around. Back in '99, as my first exposure
to OS/2, I installed 2.1GA from floppies (25!), and it went SMOOTHLY, though I
had to re-do it after trashing it with experiments. Point is, I discovered a
wonderful alternative to Windows. Even 2.1GA is far superior technically to
Win3.1, 95, and 98, which are mere shells on top of single-tasking DOS.

Installation may be difficult, but once done you have a stable system useable
for the foreseeable future. Compare and contrast with Windows, even XP: NEVER
stable, never quits nagging for attention and maintenance, and using it is
constant irritation, to say the least. My favorite XP story is that one time I
started a floppy format on this very 2800+ AMD now running OS/2, nothing else
going, and was LOCKED OUT of the system for FIVE minutes! Was a one-time
fluke, but Windows manages to hit worst-case performance pretty often.

If only IBM had -- but that's useless. Boiled down, the real reason Crimosoft
and IBM abandoned OS/2 is greed. -- Had they stuck with OS/2, EVERYONE would
STILL be using a 10 year old OS instead of buying several incrementally
"improved" versions of Windows! Where's the profit in that?

Now that Vista is widely regarded as crap, we can have a little revenge by
promoting Linux, if not OS/2. PCLinuxOS 2007 is my choice: has HPFS support in
the kernel, very handy for sharing files; installs from live CD, comes with
nearly everything needed for office or multimedia. As I mention elsewhere, I'm
using it for burning CDs and DVDs because so much simpler than figuring out
how to do it in OS/2, though browsing, downloading, and text on OS/2 is still
incomparably better than either Windows or Linux. So if you know anyone
yearning for an upgrade from XP, use this "windows" of opportunity while
Crimosoft fumbles around and Linux at last has a less hideous user interface.