virtualbox.org

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to install OS/2 Warp 4 into Virtualbox 4.1.16. I have the three installation diskettes, along with an actual CD. I've edited the second (Disk 1) diskette so that the danis506 IDE and ATAPI drivers have replaced the respective IBM drivers.

I first boot up from the "Installation Diskette" (Disk 0), then proceed to boot up disk 1. Finally, I will insert Disk 2, get a prompt about what I'm installing, and be asked to press Enter. After doing so, it waits for a second, when I get a screen reading like this:

OS/2 Warp 4 System Installatio

SYS0318: Message file OSO001.MSG cannot be found for message    3175.

After opting to end the program/command/operation, I am then presented with a red screen, with an error as follows:

ERROR: SYSINST2.EXE failed to return the target drive.

F3=Command Prompt

After that, I am left with no choice but to return to a prompt. I'm able to browse the cd just fine, and what's even more strange is that I was able to fdisk the hard drive (or what I thought was the hard drive), but when I change the prompt to c: and try running dir, the volume label and serial number is shown, although I get a SYS0026 error saying the specified disk or diskette cannot be accessed.

My Host OS is Windows Vista Ultimate SP2, 64 bit. I have 64MB allocated to the OS2 VM, and the IDE controller is set to ICH6. I've tried all three, however.

If anyone has any experience with getting past Disk 2 and can help me with the above errors, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,

tgp1994

EDIT: This article seems to address my issue, although while following the steps, once I try to run sysinst2, I get the following error:

SYS0201: The operating system cannot run SYSINST2->DOSCALLS.

I suggest you search this site for previous discussions of "OS/2" or "Warp". Or you can browse the "Other Guests" area.

mpack wrote:I suggest you search this site for previous discussions of "OS/2" or "Warp". Or you can browse the "Other Guests" area.

Thanks for the reply mpack,

I've actually done quite a bit of searching, not only in Virtualbox's forums, but also around the internet as a whole. Just to *-touple check, I did another search here, and only found either unresolved or unrelated threads to my issue. Is there a particular thread you would like to highlight?

You misinterpreted my meaning. I mean that there isn't a lot of OS/2 expertise around here, so perhaps you should check whether any previous discussions on this site might hold your answer - that would be more likely than on any other site.

mpack wrote:You misinterpreted my meaning. I mean that there isn't a lot of OS/2 expertise around here, so perhaps you should check whether any previous discussions on this site might hold your answer - that would be more likely than on any other site.

Oh, I see. I did actually find a few that were related to my issue, although I recall them not having an answer that worked for me. I'll keep looking and post back if I get anything working.

I just experienced what I think is my first crash in Virtualbox. I had just changed the IDE Controller type to PIIX3, then when I booted my machine, it had reached the installation diskette. I decided I wanted to try enabling the special hardware detection (by pressing Alt+F1), so I rebooted the machine, started pressing Alt-F1, then virtualbox crashed. Attached is my log file and a screenshot. I'm not really sure if this has anything to do with my original issue, but hopefully this will help the virtualbox developers.

tgp1994 wrote:I'm not really sure if this has anything to do with my original issue, but hopefully this will help the virtualbox developers.

No, it doesn't help at all. It's a fairly generic error that indicates something went wrong in the guest. It does not necessarily show any kind of bug related to virtualization, it can just be the guest OS going berserk. Which is fairly common for operating systems as old as OS/2 Warp 4 on modern hardware.

As for the original problem, I believe it's something specific to old CPUs with no nested paging. The best you can do is to search the bug tracker for a similar report and if there isn't one, create it.

Unless you're a paying customer, expect very little attention to be given to an OS that hasn't been supported by its maker for years.

michaln wrote: Unless you're a paying customer, expect very little attention to be given to an OS that hasn't been supported by its maker for years.

AFAIK support was discontinued over a decade ago by IBM. Paying customer or otherwise, I think us users are on our own

Thank you for your help, I will make my way to the bug tracker.

tgp1994 wrote:AFAIK support was discontinued over a decade ago by IBM.

For Warp 4 perhaps, for OS/2 no. IBM was selling OS/2 until the end of 2005, and provided support for longer than that. In fact I would be a bit surprised if there were no supported IBM customers at this point.

But that's on ACP2/MCP2 (OS/2 Warp 4.52) which is significantly more friendly to newer hardware than the 1996 Warp 4. In fact Warp 4 is only slightly less bad than Windows 95 (which is terrible)...

That said, I suspect the problem you ran into with the installer failing is a genuine VirtualBox bug that affects some host CPUs.

I have OS/2 Warp 4.52 and eComStation 2.1 running without any major issues on VirtualBox 4.1.16 on a Windows Box.

I do not have much experience with the 1996 Warp 4, but yesterday I was trying install Warp 3 on VBox without any major issue.

We (The OS/2 and eComStation community) had put some thoughts and information about OS/2 and eComStation running as a guest on this wiki.
http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php? ... lBox_Guest

There was some recommendations for Warp 4.
- The vHDD should not be greater than 500GB
- The boot partition cannot be greater than 64GB
- Regardless of the 64GB limit, an HPFS partition shouldn't exceed 50GB
- If installing to FAT (not recommended), the partition must be 2GB or less and reside at the beginning of the vHDD's free space.

You can also get more help on the OS2World.com forum:
http://www.os2world.com/forum/

If you need formal support with OS/2, or buy a license, the only way to get it today is buying a eComStation license. (ecomstation.com)
If you are in need of OS/2 VM for a critical business environment, I recommend you to buy it.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster