OS/2 boot CD (floppy) image
Andreas Grosche
previously found most of the other sites and newsgroup messages regarding this
topic) on building OS/2 boot CD-ROMs (http://www.os2voice.
org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0700H/vnewsf2.htm) which is excellent. Unfortunately, the
same cannot be said of the hardware available to me right now for my attempts to
reproduce the results (while I do have licenses for half a dozen versions and
revisions ofOS/2 from 2.11 to Warp 4):
As A.F. Diaz wrote, the tricky part is getting the DMDs from IDEDASD to work.
Even before I found this article, I had seen many boots hang with messages to the
effect of "cannot operate your floppy or hard drive, the system is stopped" right
after the output from a BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD /V - as it does properly recognize
my hard disks, but something fails whenever switching over from the rudimentary
boot system to the drivers OS/2 is using after the start-up phase.
I wish it were Linux ;-> (addressing partitions like /dev/hda5 leaves no
occasion for this type of issues).
Now I've tried to get a working OS/2 boot CD made from a floppy disk image in the
way suggested e.g. in the above article, i.e. building test CDs with each and
every combination and flavor of these drivers.
However, in my case the "battlefield" looks like this, much to my regret:
Number of physical "2.88" MB floppy disk drives in existence within a 200-mile
approx. radius: Zero
Systems available for development & testing of the CDs: Two, BUT... they don't
boot off CD-RWs, only from CD-Rs, and additionally, their hard drives in are in
sophisticated dual-disk multi-boot configurations partly invisible to the BIOS
but easily recognized by OS/2, adding further ways of drive letter confusion.
In this situation, there are probably only four things I can do:
1. spend the rest of my life testing with the hardware at my disposal,
or probably even get it to work some time in 2004 ;-/
2. acquire an Internet café (like A.F. Diaz) to obtain a pool of systems for the
experiments ;-)
3. test with real CD-Rs, issuing more coasters a day than Munich's Hofbräuhaus
4. ask whether anyone knows where to obtain boot disk images such as the "2.88
MB" files produced
by IMAGE I: OSBOOT.IMG (from VFDISK) or XDFs for working configurations as a
starting point...
... so this is what I am trying to do with this message (and as above, a
sufficient number of licenses).
In advance, thanks a lot for your help (also by eMail to my address below).
Greetinx/2
Andreas Grosche <t...@rumms.uni-mannheim.de>
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Michael
<t...@rumms.uni-mannheim.de> wrote:
> As A.F. Diaz wrote, the tricky part is getting the DMDs from IDEDASD to work.
> Even before I found this article, I had seen many boots hang with messages to the
> effect of "cannot operate your floppy or hard drive, the system is stopped" right
> after the output from a BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD /V - as it does properly recognize
> my hard disks, but something fails whenever switching over from the rudimentary
> boot system to the drivers OS/2 is using after the start-up phase.
[...]
> 4. ask whether anyone knows where to obtain boot disk images such as the "2.88
> MB" files produced
> by IMAGE I: OSBOOT.IMG (from VFDISK) or XDFs for working configurations as a
> starting point...
boot images can be found on the eCS/ACP/MCP.. CDs in \bootimgs but
contain
nothing special, maybe a new cdboot.flt.
I also tried the floppy emulation but with no luck ('unable to
operate...')
on several different systems (mixed ide/scsi, ide only), and theres no
known way to debug
this: problem of finding the image, os2lvm.dmd fault, problems
switching
to protect mode, what else...
regards,
michael
--
Rainer Feuerstein
>Number of physical "2.88" MB floppy disk drives in existence within a 200-mile
>approx. radius: Zero
Nope. I'm less than 100 miles away from you, and I'm in Heidelberg quite
often... ;-)
It is attached to a ThinkPad 760ED, and no: I won't sell it - it's not my
own.
But you don't need them anway:
1. Install VFDisk or SVDisk (get them from hobbes)
2. Configure it for 2.88 MB virtual floppy
3. do a "sysinstx r:" (assuming r: is your virtual floppy disk)
4. Copy all the files you need (os2krnl and such)
5. optionally: run "noea /R+ r:\*" which removes all Extended Attributes
(noea is part of lxlite)
6. save that virtual floppy disk to a file: "savedskf r: myboot.img /D /A"
>Systems available for development & testing of the CDs: Two, BUT... they don't
>boot off CD-RWs, only from CD-Rs,
Buy a new IDE CD-ROM drive, they are less than 50$ (or , if preferred)
>and additionally, their hard drives in are in
>sophisticated dual-disk multi-boot configurations partly invisible to the BIOS
>but easily recognized by OS/2, adding further ways of drive letter confusion.
tell DANIS506 to ignore the adapter(s) you don't want to see
>4. ask whether anyone knows where to obtain boot disk images such as the "2.88
>MB" files produced
> by IMAGE I: OSBOOT.IMG (from VFDISK) or XDFs for working configurations as a
>starting point...
Warp 3: Older versions of the "ServerGuide" CDs (intended to configure a
ServeRAID adapter) boot Warp 3 PM.
Warp 4.5x: \bootimgs\disk*.img on both of the CDs
Warp 4: AFAIK, there's none publicly available.
P.S.: On Warp 4.5x, use the latest kernels from testcase in conjunction with
the Alt+F4 function (read the readme!)
P.P.S.: Always include IBMATAPI.FLT if you are using IBMIDECD.FLT.