Well friends I found the cause of the "can't load file system"
failure on first hdd boot durig install.  I can't know the exact file(s)
that were responsible but I am certain now that it was due to some sort of
corruption on the install CD, which made me glad that I have a policy of
making immediate backup iso's of important CD's.  When I broke out the
fairly pristine original everything went smoothly.  I checked the iso and
it seems fine so it was either a poor quality burn, perhaps one that I
somehow neglected to spec "verify" or a scratch of the right
geometry to prism lens problems with a file or three.  Interestingly enough
the surface looks relatively free from scratches but I have found over time
that angle, shape and location are more important than sheer size.  This
especially came to light when I've used a jeweler's wheel to polish out
scratches and discovered that some seemingly larger scratches were not a
problem while some smaller ones were disastrous.

  So I can report finally that the MSI K8-N Neo 2 Platinum w/ AMD 64's,
even Venice core models, are actually a breeze for OS/2 given decent
peripheral hardware and uncorrupted install sets.  The only required update
is to "*S506.ADD", whether Dani's or IBM's to handle larger
drives.  One of mine is 160 G on this box and it worked fine both for
"ghosted" install and "ground up", once I solved some
hardware (intermittent cdrom drive, corrupted CD, rotten modern floppy
quality, etc) issues.  Incidentally with this mobo I did not have to dial
back any settings.  On the final ground up install I used aggressive ram
timing and full cacheing, read aheads, read arounds, etc without a single
hiccup.  The only letdowns are lack of accelerated drivers for this awesome
nVidia 6600 GT (256 megs DDR videoram) and non-existence of driver support
for Atheros chipset WiFi adaptors. 

  I don't know if the following oddball curiosity is common since my ol'
faithful standalone OS/2 box uses a PS/2 mouse , but I decided to go ahead
and get with the program and get USB mouse support happening and what's
weird is that once the system booted one time after installing the
"usbbasic" and "usbmouse" of which all the basic
drivers say they are "ignored" and usbmouse.sys stops and prompts
for "Enter" to continue, denoting failure, yet the mouse works
from that point forward, albeit scrolling has yet to function but I may
have the wrong scroll driver or lack a switced parameter in config.sys yet,
causing me to consider commenting the drivers out to see what occurs.

  Despite the wirelss problem at least one of the onboard Gigabit NICs
works so tonight I will be connected.  So far I just pinged another local
box but it  saw gateway/router as well as main IP.  Shoot! I may even
tackle USB storage tonight.

Feelin' *GOOD* right now
Jimmy

PS  A heartfelt "Thank You" for all respondants along the way. 





------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/9rHolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

 To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/os2hardware/

 To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    os2hardware-unsubscribe{at}yahoogroups.com

 Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



---