PE> Ok, well my theory that disabling LBA on the drive
PE> would allow me to install OS/2 was false.  It DID make the
PE> partition actually get added to boot-manager, but that's all.

RS> Its important to bear in mind that there are two quite separate
RS> problems, what FDISK etc thinks is acceptible as the location of
RS> an installable partition, and whether it works properly or not.

Understood.

RS> On further thought after my one yesterday, IBM may well just be
RS> choosing to take the easy way out on the >1024 cylinder stuff.
RS> Instead of trying to work our when its acceptible over 1024 cylinders,
RS> just decide that it never is on an IDE drive using LBA coz thats easier.

Ok, I think I'll tag OS2_Z3.

PE> I still get the "Operating system missing, system halted"
PE> message. I also tried installing OS/2 2.1, and that also failed,
PE> although it didn't corrupt my HD on the way (from memory).

RS> You really need to try that more carefully, very carefully zeroing out
RS> the first physical sector on the drive and attempting the whole thing
RS> over again with 2.1 to be quite sure its not getting rather confused
RS> about odd effects involved with enabling and disabling LBA on the fly etc.

Hmmm, I don't know that I actually have any tool that will zero out the
first physical sector.  I'll have to hunt down how to do that in OS/2.

RS> I presume you have checked the APARs on that question ?

I hadn't, but I just scanned through the OS/2 file list, and didn't see
very many APARs listed at all.  I'm sure there is millions of APARs, but
I'm not sure where to get a list of all of them.  Hang on, there was a list
in the fixpack... hey wow!

APAR= PJ16065
 OS/2 2.X, 3.0 FAILS TO BOOT FRM A PARTITION BEYOND 2 GIGS, EVEN
 WHEN MAPPED BELOW 1023 CYLINDERS.


Now I just have to figure out what to do about that.  It's actually the
first two boot disks that are important, because they are the ones that
govern whether I can tag a partition as installable.  I'll have to see if
the fixpack creates two suitable replacement disks (it creates two of
something).

PE> In fact, I can't even set the parameters for my
PE> last 2 disk drives, only the first 2.  Strange.

RS> Are you talking about the auto detect ?  Or was your the one which
RS> just noticed the extra drive when you booted with it plugged in ?

I can autodetect and get parameters for all 4 drives automatically. I can
either accept the parameters or not accept them.  If I don't like them, I
can go and set my own parameters for the first two disks elsewhere, by
choosing settings for "master" and "slave". But that
gives me my first two physical disks, no way I can see to manually set the
last two!

PE> Anyway, I got two versions of OS/2, and a completely
PE> trashable 2.5 gig drive.  What's the way forward?

RS> Well, you could go thru it like I said, carefully. Even including
RS> the Linux FDISK etc as well which you have the code for too.

I don't, but hopefully I will.

PE> Being able to boot from partitions not completely contained
PE> in the first 504 meg partition would be nice too!!!

RS> Yeah, it would be handy to be able to do that. Corse what with Merlin
RS> coming, that may radically change the detail too, you could easily
RS> spend a lot of time farting around with Warp working out what it is
RS> fussy about on that only to find they fixed that blemish with Merlin too.

When is Merlin due to be buyable?  BFN.  Paul.

P.S. Ok, the 2 fixpack boot disks are not substitutes for my OS/2 boot
disks, meaning I'm not sure how I'm meant to get that fix applied, when the
fix needs to be applied to my boot disks! I'll try that out later.  Oh, and
I found out that I am using Amibios.  One of these GUI Bios setups -
radical!
@EOT:

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