OS/2 Warp 3 System installation detected an internal error (03)

[TOWF]

I'm trying to start a VM collection and I'm currently trying to install every OS/2. When I got to Warp 3, things took a turn. Below this message is the error I got and the log for the VM. I'm using Windows 11 Home as the host and the RAM size is currently 48 MB, but I tried 128, 64, and 32 MB, and I still got the error on all of them. I also tried decreasing the VHD size to be 512 MB but that didn't work either. Help is very much appreciated and until I get an answer, I'm moving on to Warp 4.

[TOWF]

Hello? It's been 2 months. I would expect help by now.

[mpack]

You get help if your question coincides with an interest of a volunteer. I guess there aren't many OS/2 Warp 3 using volunteers around here.

You would need expert OS/2 Warp 3 help to understand what that error means. Certainly I can't help you with that. Once the error message is understood you might then know how to modify the VM to work around it.

We do have an OS/2 Warp 4 tutorial, but it's rather old - dating from the VirtualBox 4.x era.

I also found this web page about the above Warp 3 error: https://forum.winworldpc.com/discussion ... -2-3-x-3-0.

[ghr]

For OS/2 Warp 3: use the VirtualBox defaults, and don't exceed them! Also ensure that you have correct media... Hint: typically the boot floppies are found as images on the iso.
For the (old) OS/2 Warp 4 tutorial: still valid except for the networking part (depending on your host though); but up to today VBox provides GA for OS/2 Warp 4). The only thing that is NOT stable here is SMB1 support in more recent host OS'es ..

[TOWF]

Even if I set the VirtualBox Defaults for Warp 3, (48 MB of memory and 1 GB of disk size) I still get the error.

[ghr]

I have the idea that you want to set up from floppies? There is a disk2 in your log, preceded by disk0, disk1. I am NOT an expert in reading VBox logs but your controllers (floppy and PIIX3) are OK.

This is how I do it (using VBox 6.1.26 at Linux host):

• find an iso (CDROM image) of the OS of interest
• mount the iso and extract the bootfloppies, typically in directory /diskimgs/os2/35, images named disk0, disk1_cd (note the _cd)
• insert disk0
• set up a VM with OS/2 Warp3 defaults
• and Start the VM

Works for me.

[multiOS]

@TOWF

There is a wide range of guidance on installing and using different OS/2 releases which you can track down easily using your favourite search engine.

It's certainly not the easiest of beasts to install which, along with cost at the time, demonstrates at least some of the reasons why it failed to gain ground against the competition from Microsoft Windows, but there are plenty of enthusiasts who have written in depth guidance. One possible start point would be to read the information on https://gekk.info/articles/os2.html which includes some fairly detailed advice on preparing the required media and the installation steps for the OS/2 variants on VirtualBox.

[TOWF]

@multiOS

In the documentation, (gekk.info/articles/os2.html) I went to the Warp 3 part. After copying some files, (still in the DOS-based portion) it returned a new error. It says "ERROR: SYSINST2.EXE failed to return the target dirve. pszSeg = NULL" in a little black box at the top.

[TOWF]

OK, got it to work with PCem.

[ghr]

I retried Warp3 on a Win10Pro host, using VirtualBox 7.0.12: no problem while following the procedure outlined above by me. For VirtualBox I followed the defaults after going for OS/2 Warp3.