Hard Drives using OnTrack Disk Manager

Last Updated: 29th December, 1994

Symptoms
OS/2 installation is unable to access drive, is unable to set one or more partitions installable, or reports unusual drive partition sizes.

Hardware
Large IDE drive with more than 1024 cylinders (presumably SCSI and ESDI as well) using OnTrack Disk Manager software (a.k.a. "Drive Rocket").

Problem
OnTrack Disk Manager is incompatible with operating systems other than DOS, including OS/2. It uses non-standard partition descriptions which can make the drive appear to be unreadable or uninitialized.

Fix
Back up all partitions on drives which are using OnTrak and remove OnTrack from the drives prior to installing OS/2. Partitions can be created under OS/2 beyond the "FAT Barrier" by using the OS/2 FDISK or FDISKPM programs, and formatting the new partitions to use the OS/2 High Performance File System (HPFS).