OS/2 and floppy disk drives

[tho...@antispam.ham]

What does OS/2, specifically Warp 4.52, have to do with floppy disk
drives?

For some years now, I've had an intermittent problem with booting on
one of my OS/2 systems. The system starts with a SCSI bus scan,
during which the access indicators on each of the SCSI devices will
blink, followed by the access indicator on the floppy disk drive
coming on. Sometimes the boot process hangs at that point. Yes, I
realize that OS/2 isn't involved at this point. Read on. Usually
the cure is to try again, and the boot process will get past that
sticking point, immediately going through the list of boot devices
until it finds Boot Manager on one of my hard drives, and I can
select the usual OS/2 partition and boot just fine.

However, today that system hung several times in a row during the
boot process when the floppy disk access indicator came on, so I
tried going into the BIOS and disabling the floppy. That worked
in the sense that the system didn't even try to access the floppy
disk during the boot process, and it got to the Boot Manager without
any trouble.

But as soon as I selected my OS/2 partition from which to boot,
OS/2 died with an internal processing error. It didn't even get to
the autocheck on the IFS lines, which are first in the CONFIG.SYS
file. I tried again, this time selecting my maintenance partition
in Boot Manager. Same internal processing error. Went back into
the BIOS and re-enabled the floppy disk drive, and fortunately, this
time the system didn't hang when the floppy's access indicator came
on during the boot process. Boot Manager came up just fine.
Selected my usual OS/2 partition, and it booted just fine. No sign
of any internal processing error.

Thus this experiment seems pretty conclusive:

disable floppy disk in BIOS, OS/2 dies with internal processing error
during the boot process before it even gets to the IFS line in the
CONFIG.SYS file

enable floppy disk in BIOS, and OS/2 boots just fine

There are no references to an A: or B: drive in CONFIG.SYS, so no
obvious dependence on a floppy drive at all.

Hence the question: why does Warp 4.52 need to have an enabled
floppy disk drive in order to boot?

[Peter Brown]

Hi tholen

Does it?

I doubt that there is very much difference between Warp 4.52 and eCS 2.0
and I've just transplanted a Hard drive with eCS2.0 installed from a box
with a floppy drive to a box without a floppy drive. No problem booting
at all.

However, this does jog a memory... something about MCA BIOS being on
floppy disk...

Do you have a line loading ABIOS.SYS (I think that is the driver that
looks on the A: drive for a BIOS) in your config.sys file?


Regards

Pete

[Dave Yeo]

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:
> What does OS/2, specifically Warp 4.52, have to do with floppy disk
> drives?

I ran V4 on a machine without a floppy for quite a while. The only
problem was something to do with install. It's been a long time but I
think I tried to re-install and it wouldn't allow it without a floppy. I
ended up going the CID route which did work.
You could try remming out BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD to see if that makes a
difference.
Dave

[Mr. G]

I think when you disabled the floppy, it didn't change the bios boot order.
Then bios got to the floppy in boot order, didn't find a floppy drive and
silently failed. Just change the boot order to put the floppy as the last
item in line instead of where it's at now.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Peter Brown writes:

> Do you have a line loading ABIOS.SYS (I think that is the driver that
> looks on the A: drive for a BIOS) in your config.sys file?

Nope. Not this machine. Have to go back two generations of computers
to find a microchannel machine at my place.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Dave Yeo writes:

> I ran V4 on a machine without a floppy for quite a while. The only
> problem was something to do with install. It's been a long time but I
> think I tried to re-install and it wouldn't allow it without a floppy. I
> ended up going the CID route which did work.
> You could try remming out BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD to see if that makes a
> difference.

I don't recall how OS/2 processes the CONFIG.SYS file. Is it a two-pass
process such that it loads all the base device drivers before going back
and processing things like the IFS lines? The internal processing error
occurred before the autocheck on the IFS lines occurred, which happen to
be first in the CONFIG.SYS file. But later on, I do have:

BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD
BASEDEV=IBM2FLPY.ADD
BASEDEV=XDFLOPPY.FLT

Curious as to why both 1FLPY and 2FLPY are in there.

Next time I run into this boot problem, I'll give REMming out those lines
a try. Of course, to do so, I'll need a successful boot, at which point
I'll probably be reluctant to experiment.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Mr. G" writes:

> I think when you disabled the floppy, it didn't change the bios boot order.
> Then bios got to the floppy in boot order, didn't find a floppy drive and
> silently failed. Just change the boot order to put the floppy as the last
> item in line instead of where it's at now.

Although it's true that the floppy was the first item in the boot device
order, disabling the floppy didn't cause the boot device selection to fail.
The boot order moved on to the second device, a SCSI CD drive, and not
finding anything to boot from there either, moved on to the third boot
device, namely a hard disk, and it did find the Boot Manager there, allowed
me to select either the regular or maintenance partitions, and the OS/2 boot
blob did appear, so it definitely accessed the hard disk successfully.

[Allan]

On Thu, 2 May 2013 17:52:51 UTC, tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

[..]

>But as soon as I selected my OS/2 partition from which to boot,
>OS/2 died with an internal processing error.

How do you expect any1 to guess the error, when you do not post the IPE ?

> I don't recall how OS/2 processes the CONFIG.SYS file. Is it a two-pass
> process such that it loads all the base device drivers before going back
> and processing things like the IFS lines?

It is a bit more intellegent than "2 pass"; but generally all basedevs first, then
IFS/device drivers, then all run/call lines.

>The internal processing error
> occurred before the autocheck on the IFS lines occurred, which happen to
> be first in the CONFIG.SYS file. But later on, I do have:
>
> BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD
> BASEDEV=IBM2FLPY.ADD
> BASEDEV=XDFLOPPY.FLT
>
> Curious as to why both 1FLPY and 2FLPY are in there.

1FLPY is for ISA hardware (= all hw today) and 2FLPY is for MCA (= just REM it)

> Next time I run into this boot problem, I'll give REMming out those lines
> a try. Of course, to do so, I'll need a successful boot, at which point
> I'll probably be reluctant to experiment.

Again, if you post the IPE, somebody (=not me :-) ) might be able to tell, what
happened. Remember to include kernel version.


--
Allan.

It is better to close your mouth, and look like a fool,
than to open it, and remove all doubt.

[Mike Luther]

Hi Tholen ..

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

> What does OS/2, specifically Warp 4.52, have to do with floppy disk
> drives?

Text removed to save space ..

> Hence the question: why does Warp 4.52 need to have an enabled
> floppy disk drive in order to boot?
>

I've worked with probably a couple of hundred different OS/2 boxes of all
kinds and .. with lots of different kinds of floppy disk drives. The others
that have helped you here are right. However you might want to check a
different path to 'fix' this! I've found even back into the start of OS/2
with the team in Boca Raton, Florida, that a 'floppy drive' isn't just one
kind of item. I've even got OS/2 boxes that still use the old eight-inch
floppy drives as well as the old single side ones, five inch models, plus the
fact that there are even several different 3-inch diskette versions that have
different disk 'formats' densities and so on. Over the years, OS/2's floppy
disk drivers have undergone significant modification to allow all of these
different floppy disk formats and sizes to work. Most of the users never have
anything to worry about since, 'if a box works; it works!'

I'm not being critical or downing anyone here. But in years of fooling with
this I've seen over and over again, that 'failure to boot' in OS/2 with a box
that normally involves a floppy that does work most of the time normally can
and does result from several 'vectors'.

Over and over I have seen the drive unit fail - intermittently - as
a hardware failure in the drive itself! For example, if the head on
that drive doesn't report properly as to initial position, some other
little glitch in the transistor components in it at boot up response
to the OS/2 drive request to, 'Hey drive are you there?', you will
intermittently get exactly the results you are having. Answer; you
substitute a new or other known good floppy drive and see if that
stops the problem.

As a second vector toward this, corrosion or other cable/connector
stuff for the drive can also cause this. Change the drive cable to
test this.

As a third vector toward this, you can check the drive voltages for
the floppy diskette for the proper voltage. Sometimes, for any of
several reasons, the power supply in a given box will, during boot
only, suffer a voltage irregularity at that point in the boot run
from a voltage regulator intermittent irregularity from a number of
vectors. Dirty connector issues, tiny trouble with solder defects
on the supply board, and even, at that precise point, a voltage
tiny blip during in the supply itself, or caused by a bad mother
board transistor, or more likely, a growing old filter capacitor or
break-down in the switching power supply that almost ALL computer
systems use to create the DC voltages needed from the 120/240VAC
power source I think we are talking about.

A fourth vector toward this can actually be in connector corrosion
issues of a much smaller kind. Both drives and mother boards have
group of tiny little switch pin plugs that stick down over little
tiny metal pins. To 'teach' the mother board how to coordinate
the BIOS information for it to work with drives, video; lots of
stuff. Corrosion or dirty stuff here can cause exactly what you
are seeing. Particularly if the pin selection plugs on a floppy
disk are dirty. Checking this can work at times on some drives.

Curiously, since floppy drives are not sealed items like hard
drives, strange things can dirty up more that the head area where
they read data from the disk you insert. As well, dirty stuff
can also get stuck on not only heads, but also on the bars and
motor actions that move the heads back and forth over the
diskettes! If for some reason, the head controller assembly
gets jammed even a tiny bit from the 'hone' position for boot
up, it can tell your computer that the drive 'isn't there'.
I've even seen once where an ant that crawled into a drive
caused this! I've kept floppy drive cleaning 'disk' tools
around for decades now for this work.

As a last thought, as computers get older and older, both the
pins and socket operations for CPU's, as well as the little
battery that makes your box remember how the BIOS is set up
age. As a BIOS issue, as this begins to show up, it frequently
also is intermittent like you describe. As well, another very
frequent cause of this turns out to me a bad memory chip board
unit! If the little tiny bit of memory that is bad is what the
box is using to determine that drive status at boot time; presto
wrong answer. Slipping a memory board out and in to clean the
socket connections can fix things. Those that cannot be fixed
for a board going bad can many times be found by running memory
test utilities on your box. As well the utility Sysinfo/2 for
OS/2 is a TREASURE of a way to find things you wouldn't believe
are causing problems.

Just trying to help here. Sorry for all the yap yap.


--


--> Sleep well; OS2's still awake! ;)

Mike Luther

[ivan]

On Thu, 2 May 2013 22:18:55 UTC, Mike Luther <mike....@ziplog.com>
wrote:

Mike, I agree with you on the hardware - my first reaction was that
there was a floppy drive that was failing and should be replaced,
although we have taken quite a few apart for cleaning over the years
(amazing what you can find in some).

The other thing, as you mention, is to unplug and replug cables. The
end that plugs into the floppy is very prone to creating problems.

ivan
--

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Allan" <all...@warpspeed.dyndns.dk> writes:

> [..]

>> But as soon as I selected my OS/2 partition from which to boot,
>> OS/2 died with an internal processing error.

> How do you expect any1 to guess the error, when you do not post the IPE ?

I wasn't asking any1 to guess the error. I was asking about the
relationship between OS/2 and floppy disk drives. It should be
obvious from what I already posted that the IPE is caused by the
floppy drive being disabled in the BIOS. No guessing necessary.

>> I don't recall how OS/2 processes the CONFIG.SYS file. Is it a two-pass
>> process such that it loads all the base device drivers before going back
>> and processing things like the IFS lines?

> It is a bit more intellegent than "2 pass"; but generally all basedevs first, then
> IFS/device drivers, then all run/call lines.

So the IBM1FLPY.ADD BASEDEV apaprently requires the presence of a
floppy, even though IBM2FLPY.ADD apparently does not. Curious
inconsistency.

>> The internal processing error
>> occurred before the autocheck on the IFS lines occurred, which happen to
>> be first in the CONFIG.SYS file. But later on, I do have:
>>
>> BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD
>> BASEDEV=IBM2FLPY.ADD
>> BASEDEV=XDFLOPPY.FLT
>>
>> Curious as to why both 1FLPY and 2FLPY are in there.

> 1FLPY is for ISA hardware (= all hw today) and 2FLPY is for MCA (= just REM it)

Yes, I am aware of that. The question is why the OS/2 installer put
2FLPY there in the first place.

>> Next time I run into this boot problem, I'll give REMming out those lines
>> a try. Of course, to do so, I'll need a successful boot, at which point
>> I'll probably be reluctant to experiment.

> Again, if you post the IPE, somebody (=not me :-) ) might be able to tell, what
> happened. Remember to include kernel version.

I'm not really that interested in the gory details of why OS/2 died
with an IPE. What's relevant is that OS/2 died with an IPE very
early in the boot process after I disabled the floppy in BIOS.
Obviously there is a connection. That the OS/2 installer put the
2FLPY BASEDEV in there even though no MCA hardware is involved
suggests that such hardware doesn't need to be present for the
machine to successfully boot, yet I'm being forced to the conclusion
that ISA floppy hardware must be present to avoid the IPE.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Mike Luther writes:

> Over and over I have seen the drive unit fail - intermittently - as
> a hardware failure in the drive itself! For example, if the head on
> that drive doesn't report properly as to initial position, some other
> little glitch in the transistor components in it at boot up response
> to the OS/2 drive request to, 'Hey drive are you there?', you will
> intermittently get exactly the results you are having. Answer; you
> substitute a new or other known good floppy drive and see if that
> stops the problem.

Yes, the floppy hardware itself is quite old, though not as old as
the rest of the machine, which is still doing quite well. And the
drive no longer can successfully read floppies. I get CRC errors
when I try to use it. However, I don't really need a floppy disk
drive anymore. If I desperately need to look for some ancient file
that might be on a floppy disk, I'll either use a different machine
or haul out a USB floppy drive that I got with a laptop many years
ago.

As such, I'm not highly motivated to replace the floppy drive just
so that my machine can boot reliably. Disabling the floppy seemed
like the way to go, though as I discovered the hard way, it causes
the internal processing error during boot. Thus I've been trying to
learn more about the relationship between OS/2 and floppies so that
I can hopefully get by without one. The next thing to try is what
Dave Yeo suggested, namely REMming out the IBM1FLPY.ADD BASEDEV in
CONFIG.SYS. Because OS/2 has been installed and runs successfully
on floppy-less systems, OS/2 obviously doesn't require one to be
present. I guess the difference here is that on a floppy-less system,
the installer doesn't include the IBM1FLPY.ADD line in CONFIG.SYS,
but since my system did have a floppy when I first installed OS/2,
it put the driver in CONFIG.SYS, and now it apparently insists on
having the floppy present. In order for me to disable the floppy,
I basically need to replicate what the OS would look like if it had
been installed to a floppy-less system.

[Mr. G]

Well Jeez Louise, you've been told faulty hardware will cause the IPE, now
you've just admitted your floppy drive is faulty and you don't want to
replace, so just open the case, pull the power cable from the drive and be
done with it! The only relationship between OS/2 and floppies is a faulty
drive, just as the case is with most other faulty hardware.

[Dave Yeo]

ivan wrote:
> Mike, I agree with you on the hardware - my first reaction was that
> there was a floppy drive that was failing and should be replaced,
> although we have taken quite a few apart for cleaning over the years
> (amazing what you can find in some).
>
> The other thing, as you mention, is to unplug and replug cables. The
> end that plugs into the floppy is very prone to creating problems.

I've had broken floppies for years, only symptom is formatting, reading
and writing fails.
Dav

[Dave Yeo]

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:
> I wasn't asking any1 to guess the error. I was asking about the
> relationship between OS/2 and floppy disk drives. It should be
> obvious from what I already posted that the IPE is caused by the
> floppy drive being disabled in the BIOS. No guessing necessary.

The guessing is why your system dies with the floppy disabled

>
>>> >> I don't recall how OS/2 processes the CONFIG.SYS file. Is it a two-pass
>>> >> process such that it loads all the base device drivers before going back
>>> >> and processing things like the IFS lines?
>> > It is a bit more intellegent than "2 pass"; but generally all basedevs first, then
>> > IFS/device drivers, then all run/call lines.
> So the IBM1FLPY.ADD BASEDEV apaprently requires the presence of a
> floppy, even though IBM2FLPY.ADD apparently does not. Curious
> inconsistency.

No it doesn't.

>
>>> >> The internal processing error
>>> >> occurred before the autocheck on the IFS lines occurred, which happen to
>>> >> be first in the CONFIG.SYS file. But later on, I do have:
>>> >>
>>> >> BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD
>>> >> BASEDEV=IBM2FLPY.ADD
>>> >> BASEDEV=XDFLOPPY.FLT
>>> >>
>>> >> Curious as to why both 1FLPY and 2FLPY are in there.
>> > 1FLPY is for ISA hardware (= all hw today) and 2FLPY is for MCA (= just REM it)
> Yes, I am aware of that. The question is why the OS/2 installer put
> 2FLPY there in the first place.

Always has, probably in case you have a MCA machine in which case it
would be the 1fply that would sit there not doing anything besides using
a bit of memory.

>
>>> >> Next time I run into this boot problem, I'll give REMming out those lines
>>> >> a try. Of course, to do so, I'll need a successful boot, at which point
>>> >> I'll probably be reluctant to experiment.
>> > Again, if you post the IPE, somebody (=not me:-) ) might be able to tell, what
>> > happened. Remember to include kernel version.
> I'm not really that interested in the gory details of why OS/2 died
> with an IPE. What's relevant is that OS/2 died with an IPE very
> early in the boot process after I disabled the floppy in BIOS.
> Obviously there is a connection. That the OS/2 installer put the
> 2FLPY BASEDEV in there even though no MCA hardware is involved
> suggests that such hardware doesn't need to be present for the
> machine to successfully boot, yet I'm being forced to the conclusion
> that ISA floppy hardware must be present to avoid the IPE.
>

I just disabled my floppy in the BIOS, booted fine and the only
differences are drive A: has joined drive B: at the bottom of the drives
list and doing a dir a: causes a sys0039.
There is something else wrong with your machine and the IPE might help
diagnose why your machine would crash from simply disabling the floppy.
Dave

[James J. Weinkam]

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:
>
> So the IBM1FLPY.ADD BASEDEV apaprently requires the presence of a
> floppy, even though IBM2FLPY.ADD apparently does not. Curious
> inconsistency.
>

No it doesn't. My T60 has a single bay into which either a CD/DVD or a floppy can be inserted. With the CD/DVD installed
there is no floppy and IBM1FLPY.ADD silently fails to load and the system continues booting with no problem. If I had a
floppy, I could add the /F parameter to IBM1FLPY.ADD to force it to load. It is supposed to be possible to hot swap the
floppy and the CD/DVD but I have never been able to try it. As it is, I have both IBM1FLPY.ADD and IBM2FLPY.ADD remmed out.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:

> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told faulty hardware will cause the IPE, now
> you've just admitted your floppy drive is faulty and you don't want to
> replace, so just open the case, pull the power cable from the drive and be
> done with it! The only relationship between OS/2 and floppies is a faulty
> drive, just as the case is with most other faulty hardware.

Well Jeez Louise, you've been told that the floppy was disabled in the BIOS.
How does that not achieve the same effect as pulling the power cable?

The floppy hasn't worked in years, but it never prevented booting.

Until I disabled it in BIOS. Your suggestion of pulling the power cable
would presumably have the same effect as disabling it in BIOS, thus
inhibiting the boot process.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"James J. Weinkam" <j...@cs.sfu.ca> writes:

>> So the IBM1FLPY.ADD BASEDEV apaprently requires the presence of a
>> floppy, even though IBM2FLPY.ADD apparently does not. Curious
>> inconsistency.

> No it doesn't.

If the presence of IBM1FLPY in a system with the floppy drive
disabled in BIOS isn't cause the internal processing error, then
what is?

[Mr. G]

On Sun, 5 May 2013 07:12:23 UTC, tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

> "Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > Well Jeez Louise, you've been told faulty hardware will cause the IPE, now
> > you've just admitted your floppy drive is faulty and you don't want to
> > replace, so just open the case, pull the power cable from the drive and be
> > done with it! The only relationship between OS/2 and floppies is a faulty
> > drive, just as the case is with most other faulty hardware.
>
> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told that the floppy was disabled in the BIOS.
> How does that not achieve the same effect as pulling the power cable?
>

It does not, but explaining it would be futile.

> The floppy hasn't worked in years, but it never prevented booting.
>

Then you have other hardware problems.

> Until I disabled it in BIOS. Your suggestion of pulling the power cable
> would presumably have the same effect as disabling it in BIOS, thus
> inhibiting the boot process.
>

Don't presume.

[Frank-Rainer Grahl]

No it not the same. if you disable it in the BIOS you free up at least an
interrupt and the driver wouldn't even find the controller. Bad (or good things)
things can happen if you bios shuffles around interrupts and resources. Pulling
the cable just means the driver wouldn'T find a floppy.

FRG

Regards
Frank-Rainer Grahl
frg...@REMOVE.ME.gmx.net

[Mike Luther]

Yes, Frank!

Frank-Rainer Grahl wrote:

> No it not the same. if you disable it in the BIOS you free up at least an
> interrupt and the driver wouldn't even find the controller. Bad (or good things)
> things can happen if you bios shuffles around interrupts and resources. Pulling
> the cable just means the driver wouldn'T find a floppy.
>
> FRG

Spot on correct. As well, to fully solve these things, I've always had to
VERY carefully check the use of all interrupts to make sure that a given IRQ
is not being 'used' for something it 'can't' be used for, though has been
shuffled there when a floppy isn't working properly even though it is still
there in the box and either the drive or the mother board has shuffled the IRQ
table during the boot process that corrupts things.

There are even things like this when in the user setup of stuff in sequence in
the CONFIG.SYS just a simple change in the construction of the CONFIG.SYS, if
you shuffle this or that device driver line sequence in it, you can either
'cure' a deal like this or 'cause' it. As well, in many instances where you
may be using USB device driver operations, you actually, in some versions of
OS/2, have to deliberately put even such a thing as:

SET SNAP_INTCURSOR_DISABLE=Y

as the LAST line in CONFIG.SYS to stop these things! Together with what I
have long ago found out. That to stop stuff like this because of even other
curious problems in OS/2, you should ALWAYS finish the CONFIG.SYS with a
single blank line with the 'standard' EOL mark.

Most 'installation' routines that modify CONFIG.SYS in OS/2 can 'add' the
thought to be required code to the bottom of the current CONFIG.SYS. In doing
so all kinds of strange things can erupt in sometimes not being able to boot
properly or even load a plug-in USB device or whatever after you have booted
the system, then locking it up an really messing things up.

Sorry for the YAP YAP. But though many hours of fighting through this as part
of the IBM external Development Team for years, I've discovered a lot.

[T.]

Hi,

> BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD
> BASEDEV=IBM2FLPY.ADD
> BASEDEV=XDFLOPPY.FLT
>
> Curious as to why both 1FLPY and 2FLPY are in there.

it's standard, you only need IBM2FLPY on an MCA-system.

On all others you can delete this line.
--
To Answer please replace "invalid" with "de" !
Zum Antworten bitte "invalid" durch "de" ersetzen !


Chau y hasta luego,

Thorolf

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:

>>> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told faulty hardware will cause the IPE, now
>>> you've just admitted your floppy drive is faulty and you don't want to
>>> replace, so just open the case, pull the power cable from the drive and be
>>> done with it! The only relationship between OS/2 and floppies is a faulty
>>> drive, just as the case is with most other faulty hardware.

>> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told that the floppy was disabled in the BIOS.
>> How does that not achieve the same effect as pulling the power cable?

> It does not, but explaining it would be futile.

Probably because you can't.

>> The floppy hasn't worked in years, but it never prevented booting.

> Then you have other hardware problems.

Such as?

It's pretty simple. Disable the floppy in BIOS, OS/2 stops with an IPE
before it gets to the IFS autocheck. Enable the floppy in BIOS, OS/2
boots just fine. Clearly, disabling the floppy is NOT what I want to do.
Pulling the power cable disables the floppy.

>> Until I disabled it in BIOS. Your suggestion of pulling the power cable
>> would presumably have the same effect as disabling it in BIOS, thus
>> inhibiting the boot process.

> Don't presume.

Practice what you preach.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Frank-Rainer Grahl" <frg...@gmx.net> writes:

> No it not the same. if you disable it in the BIOS you free up at least an
> interrupt and the driver wouldn't even find the controller.

How can freeing a resource cause problems? Dave Yeo tried disabling his
floppy in BIOS and his machine booted just fine.

> Bad (or good things)
> things can happen if you bios shuffles around interrupts and resources. Pulling
> the cable just means the driver wouldn'T find a floppy.

I wouldn't assume that the motherboard does absolutely nothing differently
when the power cable gets pulled from a floppy, but can do all sorts of
things differently when the floppy gets disabled in BIOS.

Knowing that shuffling interrupts can cause problems, why would a
motherboard do that?

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Mike Luther <mike....@ziplog.com> writes:

> Most 'installation' routines that modify CONFIG.SYS in OS/2 can 'add' the
> thought to be required code to the bottom of the current CONFIG.SYS. In doing
> so all kinds of strange things can erupt in sometimes not being able to boot
> properly or even load a plug-in USB device or whatever after you have booted
> the system, then locking it up an really messing things up.

I have OS/2 on a machine at work. There is a LaCie USB drive attached
to one of the USB ports on the front on the case. I can reboot the
machine just fine with that drive attached.

I also have a Seagate USB drive attached to one of the USB ports on the
back of the case. If that one remains attached during a reboot, the
system freezes when the Intel motherboard splashscreen gets displayed.
Unplug the Seagate USB drive, and the system boots just fine (the
splashscreen doesn't even get shown, or lasts for too short a time to
even notice). First time it happened, it was all a great mystery and
took lots of work to discover the problem. Now I have a great big note
on the case that says "To reboot, unplug Seagate USB drive".

What I don't know is if it's something to do with the Seagate drive
itself, or whether it's a matter of having two USB drives attached
as opposed to one USB drive attached. The LaCie is the older of the
two and has been my principal storage for large data files, so it has
a longer history of working successfully with my system, so I've never
tried it with just the Seagate USB drive attached. Wouldn't expect a
difference between a front panel USB port and a back panel USB port.

What else could it be?

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Dave Yeo <dave....@gmail.com> writes:

>> I wasn't asking any1 to guess the error. I was asking about the
>> relationship between OS/2 and floppy disk drives. It should be
>> obvious from what I already posted that the IPE is caused by the
>> floppy drive being disabled in the BIOS. No guessing necessary.

> The guessing is why your system dies with the floppy disabled

Again, in my initial posting, I wasn't asking anybody to guess
why my system dies with the floppy disabled in BIOS. It's clear
that disabling the floppy in BIOS causes the problem, thus I
have a solution, namely to not disable the floppy in BIOS.

But I know from experience with OS/2 on a floppy-less laptop
that OS/2 doesn't require the presence of a floppy drive, thus
it seemed odd to me that OS/2 would die when a floppy drive got
disabled in BIOS. Hence the question was about the relationship
of OS/2 and floppy drives, not about what the internal processing
error was caused by. I already know that it was caused by the
floppy being disabled.

I'm well aware that the information on a trap screen is needed
for someone to diagnose what caused the trap. But I wasn't
asking for anyone to diagnose what caused the trap, because I
already know what change to my system caused the trap, hence the
reason why I didn't provide the information on the trap screen.
Unfortunately, that doesn't stop some people from automatically
complaining about the lack of such information.

>>>>>> I don't recall how OS/2 processes the CONFIG.SYS file. Is it a two-pass
>>>>>> process such that it loads all the base device drivers before going back
>>>>>> and processing things like the IFS lines?

>>>> It is a bit more intellegent than "2 pass"; but generally all basedevs first, then
>>>> IFS/device drivers, then all run/call lines.

>> So the IBM1FLPY.ADD BASEDEV apaprently requires the presence of a
>> floppy, even though IBM2FLPY.ADD apparently does not. Curious
>> inconsistency.

> No it doesn't.

Well, the problem has to be with something before the autocheck on
the IFS line gets done. As far as I know, it's only the loading
of the BASEDEVs that happens before the boot process goes back to
the top of CONFIG.SYS and starts processing the IFS lines. The
only BASEDEVs that appears to be related to the floppy are the
ones I listed below.

I've already REMmed out those lines in the CONFIG.SYS of my
maintenance partition, so if the problem recurs, I can try both
configurations and find out from direct experimentation.

>>>>>> The internal processing error
>>>>>> occurred before the autocheck on the IFS lines occurred, which happen to
>>>>>> be first in the CONFIG.SYS file. But later on, I do have:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> BASEDEV=IBM1FLPY.ADD
>>>>>> BASEDEV=IBM2FLPY.ADD
>>>>>> BASEDEV=XDFLOPPY.FLT
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Curious as to why both 1FLPY and 2FLPY are in there.

>>>> 1FLPY is for ISA hardware (= all hw today) and 2FLPY is for MCA (= just REM it)

>> Yes, I am aware of that. The question is why the OS/2 installer put
>> 2FLPY there in the first place.

> Always has, probably in case you have a MCA machine in which case it
> would be the 1fply that would sit there not doing anything besides using
> a bit of memory.

Wouldn't OS/2 try to make a determination about what type of hardware
it's being installed on, or does it really not care whether it's PCI
or MCA?

>>>>>> Next time I run into this boot problem, I'll give REMming out those lines
>>>>>> a try. Of course, to do so, I'll need a successful boot, at which point
>>>>>> I'll probably be reluctant to experiment.

>>>> Again, if you post the IPE, somebody (=not me:-) ) might be able to tell, what
>>>> happened. Remember to include kernel version.

>> I'm not really that interested in the gory details of why OS/2 died
>> with an IPE. What's relevant is that OS/2 died with an IPE very
>> early in the boot process after I disabled the floppy in BIOS.
>> Obviously there is a connection. That the OS/2 installer put the
>> 2FLPY BASEDEV in there even though no MCA hardware is involved
>> suggests that such hardware doesn't need to be present for the
>> machine to successfully boot, yet I'm being forced to the conclusion
>> that ISA floppy hardware must be present to avoid the IPE.

> I just disabled my floppy in the BIOS, booted fine and the only
> differences are drive A: has joined drive B: at the bottom of the drives
> list and doing a dir a: causes a sys0039.
> There is something else wrong with your machine and the IPE might help
> diagnose why your machine would crash from simply disabling the floppy.

Nothing obviously wrong with my machine, other than the floppy. But
it's been bad for years, and hasn't caused problems, until recently
(by inhibited the machine's boot process, as opposed to OS/2's boot
process), and hasn't caused OS/2 problems, until disabled in BIOS.
I do a lot of long-running number-crunching with my machine, and I tend
to reboot about once every three months. I may do more experimentation
the next time I'm forced to reboot, but I'm loathe to do it now.

[Dave Yeo]

The problems are caused by badly written drivers. Drivers that as far as
the MB knows, shouldn't exist.
I have a network card that fails if it shares an interrupt (basically no
traffic) and works fine without sharing an interrupt so I have to use a
specific PCI slot here for it to work. In a different slot it might work
fine until something else changed forcing it to share an interrupt. It
is also quite possible that it could share some interrupts without
problems such as an unused floppy while sharing a busy interrupt would
cause it to fail.
Many of our drivers weren't written to share interrupts and some may
expect a lower or higher numbered one. IIRC they are serviced from low
to high (or perhaps the opposite)and the original first 7 are slightly
different from the ones added with the AT spec.
Sometimes you can also work around some of these issues in the
plug'n'play section of the BIOS by assigning them to legacy.
Dave

[Dave Yeo]

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:
> Dave Yeo<dave....@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> I wasn't asking any1 to guess the error. I was asking about the
>>> relationship between OS/2 and floppy disk drives. It should be
>>> obvious from what I already posted that the IPE is caused by the
>>> floppy drive being disabled in the BIOS. No guessing necessary.
>
>> The guessing is why your system dies with the floppy disabled
>
> Again, in my initial posting, I wasn't asking anybody to guess
> why my system dies with the floppy disabled in BIOS. It's clear
> that disabling the floppy in BIOS causes the problem, thus I
> have a solution, namely to not disable the floppy in BIOS.

Curiosity as what is broken as much as anything, Something is broken.

[...]

IBM never did have a very good install program and every version of OS/2
(not eCS) has installed both floppy drivers. Possibly they were also
considering that an install might be moved from one architecture to
another. OS/2 has always been good about continuing to work after being
moved to a different machine.

[...]

> Nothing obviously wrong with my machine, other than the floppy. But
> it's been bad for years, and hasn't caused problems, until recently
> (by inhibited the machine's boot process, as opposed to OS/2's boot
> process), and hasn't caused OS/2 problems, until disabled in BIOS.
> I do a lot of long-running number-crunching with my machine, and I tend
> to reboot about once every three months. I may do more experimentation
> the next time I'm forced to reboot, but I'm loathe to do it now.
>

Can you disable the initial floppy seek in BIOS? Most I've seen has an
option for that. Of course since you reboot so seldom you'll probably
forget to check :)
Dave

[Allan]

On Sun, 12 May 2013 23:00:03 UTC, tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

> "Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> >>> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told faulty hardware will cause the IPE, now
> >>> you've just admitted your floppy drive is faulty and you don't want to
> >>> replace, so just open the case, pull the power cable from the drive and be
> >>> done with it! The only relationship between OS/2 and floppies is a faulty
> >>> drive, just as the case is with most other faulty hardware.
>
> >> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told that the floppy was disabled in the BIOS.
> >> How does that not achieve the same effect as pulling the power cable?
>
> > It does not, but explaining it would be futile.
>
> Probably because you can't.

(very helpfull comment)

First of all, who knows if the BIOS misconfigures the the MoBo, when floppy is disabled ?
It is most likely never tested :-)

Anyway, if you disable floppy in BIOS, BIOS releases the IRQ and I/O ports reserved for
floppy. That means that plug&pray re-shuffles the assignment of IRQ's to various other
resources, and it is likely, that some other device will get IRQ6 assigned.

OS/2 really dislikes this. The ISA IRQ's, that have been mostly fixed in all times, are somewhat
hardcoded in OS/2, and it usually goes wrong, if some other devices tries to use these.

That why you are better off letting Floppy being enabled in BIOS, and pull the plug to the
defective device. Another good reason is of course, that a defective device can cause a
lot of other troubles on the ISA bus, and eventually burn your MoBo.
I have no idea, why you insist having a defective peice of hardware in your PC.

If you insist on trying to disable floppy in BIOS, go to plug and play section, and set IRQ 6 to
'Reserved' (you might need that for others, as you most likely now are configuring all manually).

When booting OS/2, press ALT-F1, and select 'Full hardware detection' the first time after changing
things in BIOS.

If you do not have any working floppies, you may want to remove the floppy1 and 2 drivers from
config.sys. They will never cause any harm if loaded; but they will use a coupple of seconds each
to try to locate the (missing) floppies - and since we all like to boot as fast as possible, you can save a few,
by REMing these.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Allan" <all...@warpspeed.dyndns.dk> writes:

>> "Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:

>>>>> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told faulty hardware will cause the IPE, now
>>>>> you've just admitted your floppy drive is faulty and you don't want to
>>>>> replace, so just open the case, pull the power cable from the drive and be
>>>>> done with it! The only relationship between OS/2 and floppies is a faulty
>>>>> drive, just as the case is with most other faulty hardware.

>>>> Well Jeez Louise, you've been told that the floppy was disabled in the BIOS.
>>>> How does that not achieve the same effect as pulling the power cable?

>>> It does not, but explaining it would be futile.

>> Probably because you can't.

> (very helpfull comment)

Yes, Mr. G hinting that he knows the answer, but won't say what the
answer is because he thinks it would be futile, isn't very helpful.

> First of all, who knows if the BIOS misconfigures the the MoBo, when floppy is disabled ?
> It is most likely never tested :-)
>
> Anyway, if you disable floppy in BIOS, BIOS releases the IRQ and I/O ports reserved for
> floppy. That means that plug&pray re-shuffles the assignment of IRQ's to various other
> resources, and it is likely, that some other device will get IRQ6 assigned.

But you don't know for certain. For all I know the MoBo could detect
that there is no floppy if the power cable is pulled and do the exact
same suffling of IRQ assignments.

> OS/2 really dislikes this. The ISA IRQ's, that have been mostly fixed in all times, are somewhat
> hardcoded in OS/2, and it usually goes wrong, if some other devices tries to use these.
>
> That why you are better off letting Floppy being enabled in BIOS, and pull the plug to the
> defective device.

How do you know that the MoBo won't notice and shuffle the IRQs anyway?

> Another good reason is of course, that a defective device can cause a
> lot of other troubles on the ISA bus, and eventually burn your MoBo.

Cycling the power on the machine can also cause something to fail, so
pick your poison. The most likely time for an incandescent light bulb
to fail is when you turn it on. I've seen the same thing with other
electronics. The machine is at least eight years old.

> I have no idea, why you insist having a defective peice of hardware in your PC.

I don't "insist" on having it in there. Pulling the plug on the floppy
isn't as easy as you might think, given the physical location of the
computer. Disabling it in BIOS only requires access to the keyboard,
which is easy. And as I pointed out to someone else, I do a lot of
long-running number-crunching on this machine, so I have to interrupt
things to do any hardware maintenance. I'm not a gear-head that likes
to spend huge amounts of time tinkering with things to minimize this
and maximize that. I simply want the machine to run so that I can get
work done.

> If you insist on trying to disable floppy in BIOS, go to plug and play section, and set IRQ 6 to
> 'Reserved' (you might need that for others, as you most likely now are configuring all manually).
>
> When booting OS/2, press ALT-F1, and select 'Full hardware detection' the first time after changing
> things in BIOS.
>
> If you do not have any working floppies, you may want to remove the floppy1 and 2 drivers from
> config.sys. They will never cause any harm if loaded; but they will use a coupple of seconds each
> to try to locate the (missing) floppies - and since we all like to boot as fast as possible, you can save a few,
> by REMing these.

Ah, but I can always plug in a USB floppy drive. Wouldn't I still need
the floppy1 driver for that to work?

[Dave Yeo]

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:
>> If you do not have any working floppies, you may want to remove the floppy1 and 2 drivers from
>> > config.sys. They will never cause any harm if loaded; but they will use a coupple of seconds each
>> > to try to locate the (missing) floppies - and since we all like to boot as fast as possible, you can save a few,
>> > by REMing these.
> Ah, but I can always plug in a USB floppy drive. Wouldn't I still need
> the floppy1 driver for that to work?
>

Good question. I'd guess that the floppy would just show as a removable
USB device and you wouldn't need the floppy driver for it to work.
Perhaps someone has actually tested.
Dave

[tho...@antispam.ham]

This much I know: the CONFIG.SYS file has options for the USBMSD driver
that distinguish floppies from other removables.

BASEDEV=USBMSD.ADD /FLOPPIES:1 /REMOVABLES:3

The last time I used a USB floppy with OS/2 was when I installed eCS 2.0
to a laptop. So much easier to load the key from floppy than to type it
in each time I tried something different.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

I wrote:

Forgot to add that the drive letter under such circumstances was still A:.

[Dave Yeo]

In that case you probably do need the floppy1 driver. It's small and
unless you're really scraping by with minimal memory shouldn't hurt to
leave it loading.
Dave

[Mr. G]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:23:31 UTC, tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

> Yes, Mr. G hinting that he knows the answer, but won't say what the
> answer is because he thinks it would be futile, isn't very helpful.
>

Futile, because after running your previous responses through my
probability calculator, there is a 70% chance you will refute any
explanation, and a 95% chance you will not attempt any possible solutions
offered.

The answer is, there is not a single 'one size fits all' answer. The exact
answer for you could be any number of things, including seemingly non
related items.

> I simply want the machine to run so that I can get
> work done.
>

Even an automobile, which everyone wants to just simply run, needs to have
its hood popped open occasionally for maintenance.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:

>> Yes, Mr. G hinting that he knows the answer, but won't say what the
>> answer is because he thinks it would be futile, isn't very helpful.

> Futile, because after running your previous responses through my
> probability calculator, there is a 70% chance you will refute any
> explanation, and a 95% chance you will not attempt any possible solutions
> offered.

Your probability calculator is defective. I suggest you pull the
power plug on it. Or disable it in BIOS. Then again, there is a
95 percent chance that you will not attempt either of those solutions.

> The answer is, there is not a single 'one size fits all' answer. The exact
> answer for you could be any number of things, including seemingly non
> related items.

I wasn't asking for a "one size fits all" answer. I was asking about
the relationship of OS/2 and floppies. Of course, I've said that before.

>> I simply want the machine to run so that I can get work done.

> Even an automobile, which everyone wants to just simply run, needs to have
> its hood popped open occasionally for maintenance.

Maybe you change the oil in your computer. Mine doesn't need oil.

[Mr. G]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 22:45:30 UTC, tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

> "Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> >> Yes, Mr. G hinting that he knows the answer, but won't say what the
> >> answer is because he thinks it would be futile, isn't very helpful.
>
> > Futile, because after running your previous responses through my
> > probability calculator, there is a 70% chance you will refute any
> > explanation, and a 95% chance you will not attempt any possible solutions
> > offered.
>
> Your probability calculator is defective. I suggest you pull the
> power plug on it. Or disable it in BIOS. Then again, there is a
> 95 percent chance that you will not attempt either of those solutions.
>

Your sarcasm is most welcome. It says quite a bit about you. It does not
however, necessitate a response, sarcastic or otherwise. Besides, user
written software has neither power plugs, nor BIOS settings :)

You see, I too do a lot of number crunching involving probabilities,
cost/benefit, risk/reward ratios, and the like. Having taken many years of
R&D, my probability software does exist, so go ahead and make fun of it/me
if it makes you feel better. I shouldn't have to tell you what that makes
you look like.

> > The answer is, there is not a single 'one size fits all' answer. The exact
> > answer for you could be any number of things, including seemingly non
> > related items.
>
> I wasn't asking for a "one size fits all" answer. I was asking about
> the relationship of OS/2 and floppies. Of course, I've said that before.
>

And to that end, you were given the same answer by more than one person.
What should have ended there, did not as you continued on by asking
questions more specific to your individual problem.

> >> I simply want the machine to run so that I can get work done.
>
> > Even an automobile, which everyone wants to just simply run, needs to have
> > its hood popped open occasionally for maintenance.
>
> Maybe you change the oil in your computer. Mine doesn't need oil.
>

If that's an attempt at humor, don't quit your day job.

[tho...@antispam.ham]

"Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:

>>>> Yes, Mr. G hinting that he knows the answer, but won't say what the
>>>> answer is because he thinks it would be futile, isn't very helpful.

>>> Futile, because after running your previous responses through my
>>> probability calculator, there is a 70% chance you will refute any
>>> explanation, and a 95% chance you will not attempt any possible solutions
>>> offered.

>> Your probability calculator is defective. I suggest you pull the
>> power plug on it. Or disable it in BIOS. Then again, there is a
>> 95 percent chance that you will not attempt either of those solutions.

> Your sarcasm is most welcome. It says quite a bit about you.

You seem oblivious to what your own sarcasm says about you.

> It does not
> however, necessitate a response, sarcastic or otherwise.

Didn't stop you from providing a sarcastic response.

> Besides, user
> written software has neither power plugs, nor BIOS settings :)

Didn't stop you from comparing a computer to a car.

> You see, I too do a lot of number crunching involving probabilities,
> cost/benefit, risk/reward ratios, and the like.

I do a lot of number crunching involving probabilites as well.
Didn't need to do any to determine that your probability
calculator is defective.

> Having taken many years of
> R&D, my probability software does exist, so go ahead and make fun of it/me
> if it makes you feel better. I shouldn't have to tell you what that makes
> you look like.

If you had better reading comprehension skills, you'd already know
that the answer produced by your years of R&D and existing software
is wrong.

>>> The answer is, there is not a single 'one size fits all' answer. The exact
>>> answer for you could be any number of things, including seemingly non
>>> related items.

>> I wasn't asking for a "one size fits all" answer. I was asking about
>> the relationship of OS/2 and floppies. Of course, I've said that before.

> And to that end, you were given the same answer by more than one person.

Meanwhile, you decided that answering would be futile, but that didn't
stop you from posting anyway.

> What should have ended there, did not as you continued on by asking
> questions more specific to your individual problem.

Classic pigheadedness. You wanted something to end because you were
convinced that the discussion had reached its logical conclusion, even
though nobody has explained why a MoBo would not shuffle IRQs after a
power plug had been pulled.

>>>> I simply want the machine to run so that I can get work done.

>>> Even an automobile, which everyone wants to just simply run, needs to have
>>> its hood popped open occasionally for maintenance.

>> Maybe you change the oil in your computer. Mine doesn't need oil.

> If that's an attempt at humor, don't quit your day job.

Once again, your probability calculator demonstrates its defectiveness.

[Mr. G]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 23:34:24 UTC, tho...@antispam.ham wrote:

Bye

[Shmuel Metz]

In <kn9fg8$ace$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, on 05/19/2013

at 03:04 AM, tho...@antispam.ham said:

>The last time I used a USB floppy with OS/2 was when I installed eCS
>2.0 to a laptop. So much easier to load the key from floppy than to
>type it in each time I tried something different.

Was that your only spare removable drive on the laptop? Was the a
logical drive available on your hard drive that you could have copied
the key to prior to the install?

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to spam...@library.lspace.org

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> writes:

>> The last time I used a USB floppy with OS/2 was when I installed eCS
>> 2.0 to a laptop. So much easier to load the key from floppy than to
>> type it in each time I tried something different.

> Was that your only spare removable drive on the laptop? Was the a
> logical drive available on your hard drive that you could have copied
> the key to prior to the install?

It's been so long since I installed eCS 2.0 to a laptop that I don't
recall all the details. If there was some place on my hard drive that
could have been written to with the ability to retain it between the
various trial installations, I wasn't aware of it.

[martinot]

tho...@antispam.ham wrote:
> "Mr. G" <nos...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>>>> Yes, Mr. G hinting that he knows the answer, but won't say what the
>>>>> answer is because he thinks it would be futile, isn't very helpful.
>
>>>> Futile, because after running your previous responses through my
>>>> probability calculator, there is a 70% chance you will refute any
>>>> explanation, and a 95% chance you will not attempt any possible solutions
>>>> offered.
>
>>> Your probability calculator is defective. I suggest you pull the
>>> power plug on it. Or disable it in BIOS. Then again, there is a
>>> 95 percent chance that you will not attempt either of those solutions.
>
>> Your sarcasm is most welcome. It says quite a bit about you.
>
> You seem oblivious to what your own sarcasm says about you.
>
>> It does not
>> however, necessitate a response, sarcastic or otherwise.
>
> Didn't stop you from providing a sarcastic response.
>
>> Besides, user
>> written software has neither power plugs, nor BIOS settings :)
>
> Didn't stop you from comparing a computer to a car.
>
>> You see, I too do a lot of number crunching involving probabilities,
>> cost/benefit, risk/reward ratios, and the like.
>
> I do a lot of number crunching involving probabilites as well.

AND what is the probability of *that*?


Wow! :)

> Didn't need to do any to determine that your probability
> calculator is defective.
>
>> Having taken many years of
>> R&D, my probability software does exist, so go ahead and make fun of it/me
>> if it makes you feel better. I shouldn't have to tell you what that makes
>> you look like.
>
> If you had better reading comprehension skills, you'd already know
> that the answer produced by your years of R&D and existing software
> is wrong.

You may have a point.

>>>> The answer is, there is not a single 'one size fits all' answer. The exact
>>>> answer for you could be any number of things, including seemingly non
>>>> related items.
>
>>> I wasn't asking for a "one size fits all" answer. I was asking about
>>> the relationship of OS/2 and floppies. Of course, I've said that before.
>
>> And to that end, you were given the same answer by more than one person.
>
> Meanwhile, you decided that answering would be futile, but that didn't
> stop you from posting anyway.
>
>> What should have ended there, did not as you continued on by asking
>> questions more specific to your individual problem.
>
> Classic pigheadedness. You wanted something to end because you were
> convinced that the discussion had reached its logical conclusion, even
> though nobody has explained why a MoBo would not shuffle IRQs after a
> power plug had been pulled.
>
>>>>> I simply want the machine to run so that I can get work done.
>
>>>> Even an automobile, which everyone wants to just simply run, needs to have
>>>> its hood popped open occasionally for maintenance.
>
>>> Maybe you change the oil in your computer. Mine doesn't need oil.

True.

But it does need a floppy change.

>> If that's an attempt at humor, don't quit your day job.
>
> Once again, your probability calculator demonstrates its defectiveness.
>

It flopped.

--
br,
martinot

[martinot]

The floppy. #1.

Check that one. Try to disable it in the BIOS.

Also try to lube the floppy spindle motor axle with some oil. Usually
does the trick in 70% of the cases (as calculated by my own software).

--
br,
martinot

[tho...@antispam.ham]

Classic illogic, given that the floppy is present in both configurations.
Obviously it is not the variable.

> Check that one. Try to disable it in the BIOS.

Unnecessary to boot with just the LaCie attached.

> Also try to lube the floppy spindle motor axle with some oil. Usually
> does the trick in 70% of the cases (as calculated by my own software).

Illogical, given that the floppy doesn't prevent rebooting when the
LaCie drive is attached.