OS/2 install floppies without Floppy Drive

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

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I want to put OS/2 back onto an old LapTop.

The trouble is, the LapTop has no Floppy Drive.

Now the Installation CDs work, by creating a set of 4 FloppyDisks, which I then insert into the PC in order 1-4 and then it will carry on with the files from the CD.

The thing is that I cant?

Is there any way I can make up a bootable installation CD for OS/2 Warp or not?

I have Warp 4.0 & 4.5

Thanks.
 
Used to install OS/2 on batches of 64 servers at a time and we never automated it with a CD but that was a long time ago. Only way I can think of is to buy/borrow a USB floppy drive.

Sorry short answer is I don't know but unless doing it often I would just find a way to use the discs.
 
There is no way to do OS/2 CDs on Barts site as far as I can see.

I think AudioLabs ide ais the most likely but again, not going to happen because the LapTop wont boot from USB.
 
What laptop is it? you may be able to copy the disks files to a second drive or network share but never tried that and you would still need to boot the laptop to something (even a dos shell) to net use to the share. Some of the older IBM laptops had a floppy interface that was not unlike a serial port is that what it has.....got to be able to boot from something other then the HDD for installation when it was built.

Not sure about this one, will give it some thought.
 
Nero lets you convert bootable floppies into CDs however I don't know if it would then let you read the rest of the data off the CD.

Would it be possible to use a Linux live CD to create two hard drive partitions, and put the sources files on the second partition.

Another option might be to remove the hard drive and fit it into a desktop. Start the installation then swapping back over before the part of the installation when the hard ware is recognised (does OS2 even recognise hardware automaticaly?)

One question, why?
 
I want to also have the Finished Floppy & CD in one...

As you may or may not know, you need 4 Floppies to do this, plus the 450 or so MB CD, so having the lot in one bootable CD is really the end aim.

I have tried to do a partial install on one PC and move it over but this does not seem to work very well? Yes OS2 will search for hardware, but doing this has failed every time I tried it.

Why?

Because OS/2 is a very underestimated OS, and it has some very nice and surprisingly powerful networking guts, that I can access with some other older computers, that Windows does not do...

Or, in a more immediate way, I dont have Ethernet on my Atari at this time, and so, I am using SLIP through to the OS/2 LapTop, which in turn is conected to the internet and this will give my Atari Internat access... Bit crappy I know, but hey... Why not?
 
I used to support OS/2 for IBM and it was and still is underrated, a few large banks were still using OS/2 and Token ring (Also underrated) until recently. They only pulled out because IBM stopped developing the products but they were like the betamax of computers.

I still have the support kits and access to some materials, we only ever supported the standard 4 disc then CD installation but will look through my archives to see if there was ever any undocumented way around this.

Good luck I admire you spirit and hope you get it working, once you get it installed you can always image the drive but it's getting it on without the floppy boot needed to created the HPFS partition and load the boot files thats the problem.

Will update if I do find anything but this was a loooong time ago.
 
audiolab said:
will look through my archives to see if there was ever any undocumented way around this.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... Think about that one for a minute!!!!

Anyway, Seriously, OS2 as you will know was certainly superior to Windows in many many many ways, it was faster and much mor epowerful, not to mention its stability was something that Microsoft only managed properly with NT5 and even then it had, shall we just say... "Undocumented Features".

Sure, its showing its age now, and has done for the last decade+ but its stilla great OS to use and as I need it for a specific task that Windows cannot do, then it is also the best OS for me at this moment ( Linux also does it too, but I want OS2 )

---

OK - UPDATE TIME :-

I have however thrown OS/2 onto my daughters LapTop now

Its a Celeron 466 with 160MB ( Annoyingly its also faster than my own Celeron 800 with 256MB by almost double too! ) and thats got a perfect working Floppy and CDROM and we have swapped for a bit.

Last time I networked OS2 to MiNT on my Atari, I spent the best part of 3 days to get it right, but I had them seeing "Something" in just a few minutes.

This time round its bee na chore to say the least... The Atari is now able to browse, but annoyingly, its deathly slow ( Much like the old BBS speeds ) and I think thats actually down to some config or other in the OS/2 LapTop, but not found anythign obvious yet.

Important thing though is that its doing it.

I think I will splash out on a LapTop for myself in the next couple of weeks... I wonder if I can install OS/2 Warp 4 onto a Dual Core AMD X2 / Conroe with 2GB and a widescreen Laptop???? - just to get my 20 year old Atari onto the internet ... For a laugh!

Now, thats just got to be cool to do for kicks if nothign else???

Later.
 
OK I know that sounded silly but I work for the company that made OS/2 as a back office support engineer for the product for three years. Many of the large banks had ways to install, configure and use OS/2 that wern't officially supported, so therefore undocumented but still worked. I still know some of the guys who wrote and maintained the code, although they have all moved onto to pastures new.

I have been out of the office for a while through illness so havent had a chance to bump into any of them, I go back to work next week and will ask their opinion but I know of no way around using the installation disks.

Can you install OS/2 Warp 4 onto a Dual Core AMD X2 / Conroe with 2GB and a widescreen Laptop???? I have absolutely no idea, never tried OS/2 on anything higher than pentium processors but I salute you for trying.
 
Do you know...

While VMWARE wont cure the whole idea of using a LapTop as a file/internet server for my Atari Falcon, it will at least let us know WTF it will do on Dual core setup???

I know that in theory, it will work because I have seen it run on a Dual Xeon 400Mhz PC from waaaaayyyyy back in time...

Doubt it will use both cores mind you?

I will let you know shortly... I have only just wiped Vista64 off this machine and gone back to XP64 ( and now my PC runs like a dream again ) and I have not yet installed VMWARE... So...

Seriously though, the widescree / Dualcore stuff was only a silly thought more than anything... I might just buy an el-cheapo LapTop but the prices are so tasty these days are they not?
 
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