rallee2{at}comcast.net wrote:

> Hello again Steve
>  
>


>  As for LVM, I think it is probably a needed and decent tool, apart
from it's unfriendly interface, for the IBM intended OS/2 market, mainly
servers and almost totally single operating system machnes.  On a
multi-boot machine it is pure hell to me.  It have read that it is possible
to choose fdisk instead of LVM but recently I have been reminded that upon
first boot LVM and it's cronies automatically create one or more
"compatibility" volumes.  The creation as well as the deletion of
these volumes is not virtual or relative only to OS/2 and they have been
responsible for considerable data loss to myself and others.
>
>  There was quite a heated controversy on here when LVM was hatched and
frankly I don't recall what side of that argument you took but I haven't
changed one iota especially since I have come into contact with it now
after almost 4 years absence, that being the time when I built a dedicated
OS/2 box which has run nicely ever since, networked.  It's only a pity I
can't connect it wirelessly at this time.  Anyway I simply despise LVM and
it's compatriots, uhhh VCU is it? one of them, anyway and probably my poor
memory of the details is due to my anger and frustration at what I consider
to be an incredibly poorly written piece of software with the only caveat
being that I recognize the most severe of it's problems cease to exist on a
standalone, fresh install box.  I said then and I'll say now that at the
time of it's arrival PQMagic had been around for a couple years and showed
everyone how it could be done, making partitioning damn near fun.  IBM, or
this particular group of programmers

, IMHO took a huge leap backwards.
>
>  I intend to write a separate post regarding this thread as an update
since I now have OS/2 working on the MSI/Athlon 64 system with very little
trouble but only because I actively avoided LVM and even still it trashed a
partition table and several partitons, though fortunately only one of them
contained any moderately important data (ie takes a good deal of time to
replace).
>
>  The only thing I'll say here and now is that the one part of the FUD
campaign that MS launched that had any real validity was difficulty in
install.
>
Last *difficult* [almost impossible is nearer - without the IBM 
technician hanging off the phoneline whilst I was talked through a whole 
range of alternative scenarios! ] "OS/2"install I had was with OS/2 V2.0 
on an MFM hardrive on a 386DX33 from floppies - basically the old W3-W4 
installation was a PITA because there were _so__many_ possible selection 
choices - in my eyes it was long-winded rather than difficult - always 
helped to have read the entire [originally large] printed User Guide and 
reference manuals - before commencing the installation! M$ made their 
installation so painless by hijacking the entire disk by default, there 
never was and probably now never will be a [completely standalone] 
logical drive installation for Windows or whatever the latest name for 
Longhorn will be [VISTA?].

It's been my experience that although one can Install windows from a 
[these days] mandatory Optical drive [CD|DVD], it's not very difficult 
for it to "lose"  that CD-ROM/DVD and very difficult to regain it!

Then again, because Windows is not forward or backward compatible - one 
ends up with the situation like this:

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=150511&s=1841&a=150568&po=9,00.asp>

"Can't install VPC/2004 under WXP-x64 edition!"

>  It just makes little sense in my book that a system will run
flawlessly on hardware configured in a manner upon which it cannot be
installed.  One example is the old days of having to turn off CPU caching
until after install was complete
>
that's because M$ never stressed the memory at installation - and would 
install onto memory that IBM would reject!

>, but there are a few more, thankfully so often easily sidestepped by
merely reverting to VGA driver and placing the drive on the new system and
Bam!, you're up.
>
>Jimmy
>  
>
Hi Jimmy,

I too have been using [since it was introduced] the former PowerQuest 
"Partition Magic" [also when it was introduced, for several years their 
"Drive Copy' which became "Drive Image" [which I didn't buy].

Personally I think the introduction of LVM was the most forward-looking 
step that IBM did with WSeB initially and then the original and 
subsequent MCPs. VCU was an automated tool that decided which partitions 
should be made into Compatibility volumes. I used it with MCP-1 and had 
no problems.

In case you're wondering, being another multi-booter - on one of my 
drives [80GiB Seagate 7200 Barracuda] - I have had up to 40 bootable 
partitions at any one time - usually some 32-bit flavour of Windows, + 
Red Hat Linux +regular HPFS-booted OS/2 W4 + MCP1 + MCP2 + all versions 
of eComStation, in addition to MCPx + eCS 1.x all booted from JFS, 
multiple installations to the same volume-letter, and whichever set of 
volumes "I" want currently on the IBM Boot Manager menu - I know that 
one can have up to 28 entries on that - I don't know what the absolute 
manimum number is.

In order to do something even remotely *approaching* this - which I had 
to do pre-LVM - with[out!] FDISK and Partitiuon Magic and System 
Commander as Boot Manager one has to selectively "hide" actual 
partitions, including selected logical partitions in the [Primary] 
Extended partition and unlike in LVM where unless the Boot-volume is 
removed, and automatically requires a reboot, in 98% of the cases I can 
"hide from OS/2-eCS" whichever volume I want to - on the fly - i.e. I 
can change my K: drive to be another unrelated partition and have it 
immediately available as the "new" K: - and they can be created 
non-alphabetically sequential and in the case of logical OS/2-eCS drives 
wherever on the disk[within the Extended partition one wants, in any 
physical [start cylinder] sequence. Similarly for any primary 
[automatically compatibility volumes] partition, allowing for the 
constraint that it cannot be within the Extended, and there can be at 
most two of them in addition to the un-volumed BM - I always locate it 
starting on head one of cylinder zero, it only needs approximately 41 
sectors of that in fact.

The thing about LVM is that it is *scriptable* - changing the BM menu on 
the fly before a SETBOOT etc.
In PQPM in order to have rhe scriting capability it was necessary to 
purchase the Enterprise edition, and in addition to have some software 
interaction problems, it cost a real bomb - like *quite* a few W4 full 
client licences.

It would be informative for you to run "LVM /STARTLOG:" and look at just how much information it actually finds and 
checks about all of the partitions etc,

I don't have any problems combining PQPM and LVM use - just don't use 
PQPM with any JFS partitions and just "touch" the drives on next bootup 
by running LVM.EXE, say change [edit and un-edit] a volume|partition 
label and then exit "saving changes" which invariably here updates its 
internal markers on the volumes.

LVM.EXE is *so* good - relative to the ultra-sluggish M$ disk Management 
Tools in that one can run through the entire scenario of menu options 
without actually implementing any of them - you can step-back as far as 
you want, even exit completely and not  save the changes - as one does 
that under M$ it's irrevocably done in nearly all cases!

Incidentally in addition to PQPM 6.0x, the final with support for HPFS, 
I have PQPM for OS/2 - final 3.05.302 edition which I still use on 
OS/2-eCS, caveat being that it won't run the OS/2 GUI version if greater 
than 256MB of RAM is fitted - irrespective of how much of that RAM is 
currently in use. Apparently the fullscreen DOS graphical version [which 
is what W95/98 had to use] from 3.05 *will* run with >256MB RAM - I 
suspect that's because it just doesn't recognize anything over 64MB.

-- 
Regards,
Mike

Failed the exam for
--------------------
MCSE - Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert
--------------------
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