SCOUG-General Mailing List Archives

Date:	Tue, 2 Feb 1999 16:19:50 PST
From:	Tony Anton <adanton@ibm.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-general@scoug.com
To:	scoug-general <scoug-general@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-General: Frustration version 8.44

Content Type: text/plain

Has anyone been able to install Warp to a Western Digital 8.44gb HD?
This has been a 6 week nightmare for me. Practically no useful help has
been forthcoming from whereever I asked for help.

The documentation states Warp 4 cannot be installed to a drive of this
size. Yet instruction is presented to install EZ-Drive, which is
supposed to correct BIOS deficiencies, and to modify EZ-Drive to make
OS/2 and NT installable. Apparently this is intended for smaller WD
drives with the same manual.

I am going to call the following "the message" to avoid repetition:
" S/2 cannot operate the hard drive or the diskette drive
Correct the above and restart the computer"

(Trevor Helmsley, on OS2Supp on Compuserve said that the initial
missing "O" is an IBM typo.)

To continue this nightmarish oddessy, I purchased the drive when the new
IDEDASD appeared on the scene. Attempting to modify installation
diskette 1, it turned up with errors. Made a new one from the cdrom, and
modified it as directed. Started the install and The Message appeared
immediately after "Loading, please wait..." appeared running diskette 1.
After many exchanges on various fora and maillists, it turned out that
there are IDEDASD.EXE files out there containing files with the
incorrect dates.

Now one interesting thing is that Warp _does_ recognize the drive. I can
transfer my Warp 4 installation from my D: drive on HD2 to the C: Drive
on the new HD. It boots and runs. Attempting to make some selective
uninstalls and installs to the newly transferred system works until the
reboot. It then hangs right after the "Processing locked files" appears.
Rebooting merely hangs in the same place. So apparently I will have to
modify the system on the D: Drive and transfer the result to C: on the
8.44 HD. That will entail a lot more work putting the D: Drive back into
the same configuration it had before.

I tried using the EZ-Drive utility that comes with the HD. That's a
beauty! After it modifies the system, you must insert a DOS or Win boot
diskette. Inserted a PC-DOS 7 diskette and trudged on. It partitions and
formats the _entire_ HD! Since the diskette was DOS, the default is to
partition the drive into 2.1gb partitions until it runs out of room. It
does give you the option of manually configuring the size of the
partitions, but you must let it go on until the entire HD is
partitioned. Next, to [attempt to] install OS/2 you must remove
something called "floppy drive protection". Did as instructed and tried
to install Warp to the new C: drive formatted in FAT. Got The Message
again. By the way, booting OS/2 from diskettes and using OS/2's FDisk
removes the installed EZ-Drive, ruining the work you've done.

My problem may indeed be an out of date BIOS. It is an AWARD BIOS
version 4.5 with a copyright date of 1997. Which brings me back to the
question at the beginning: Has anyone reading this been able to install
WARP 4 to any very large drive. What is your BIOS if so?

The file dates and sizes of the files from the January 9 version of
IDEDASD.EXE are:
ibm1s506.add 54,090 10-8-1998
ibm1decd.flt 24,136 9-30-1998
OS2DASD.dmd 40,894 9-7-1998

Yes. set copyfromfloppy=1 is in the diskette 1 config.sys

Thanks for your patience in listening to my frustration.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Tony Anton
adanton@ibm.net

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