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From: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: OS/2 1.3 install blues
Message-ID: <343@nazgul.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jun 91 02:22:53 GMT
References: <457.2844fde8@mbcl.rutgers.edu> <1991Jun2.062618.21825@nas.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Organization: Zortech, Seattle
Lines: 56

In article <1991Jun2.062618.21825@nas.nasa.gov> roelofs@amelia.nas.nasa.gov writes:
/Finally, for what it's worth, I've never done this to an OS/2 boot diskette,
/but I have messed around with OS/2 boot records, and I've also successfully
/transferred a DOS boot record from 1.2MB to 1.44MB diskettes.  So it SHOULD
/work. :-)  E-mail if you have problems, but I've already used up this month's
/quota of miracles...

I have got OS/2 1.3, and attempted to install it on my 486 with a Micronics
motherboard and a Powergraph ERGO-VGA.

First problem: it comes on 3.5" disks, and drive A on my 486 is 5.25, drive
B is 3.5. Since the silly install disks wish to be booted, I had to reconfig
the machine to make the 3.5 drive to be the drive A.

Next, it asks me what kind of mouse I have, and gives a list of them. I have
one of those new Microsoft "soap on a rope" mice. The list of mouse part
numbers neither matched any numbers on the mouse itself, nor the part number
on the box the mouse came it (all three numbers were non-comparable!).
I picked a serial MS mouse from the list, and hoped for the best.

For the graphics adapter, the closest one I picked was "IBM VGA".

I installed and rebooted...

Alas, the thing came up and produced something that looked like an OS/2
screen, but it was all mangled. The most obvious suspect is a video mismatch.
A check of the disk that came with the video board did not reveal any
OS/2 device driver.

I gave up. "No problem", thinks I, I'll just reinstall DOS 4.01. Digging
out my DOS boot floppy and rebooting, I try SYS C: only to be presented
with the message;

	Not able to SYS to FAT file system.

Panicking, I checked my DOS manual in the error messages section. No luck,
it isn't there. Hmm, methinks, my hard disk *is* a FAT file system. I called
a friend who told me that SYS will only work if the hard disk is freshly
formatted. In fact, even if you delete all files off the disk, SYS still
won't work. Only problem is, I have 150Mb on my hard disk and it would be
many hours to backup and restore.

So, my questions are:
1. Anyone know of a utility that will arrange the FAT so that SYS will work?

My gripes are:
1. After 4 versions of DOS, and billions of revenue, why can't SYS rearrange
   the FAT as necessary to get its boot files in?
2. Why doesn't MS put the part number on the mouse, and use the same part
   number on the box, and on the OS pick list?
3. MS Windows installed with all defaults and ran just fine on my machine
   and video card. Why can't OS/2?
4. OS/2 needs an INSTALL.EXE program for people trying to install it from
   other than drive A.

It's been a long day...