Cannot boot OS/2 1.x on 5170/5162

[pkhoury]

I have a really strange problem. At first, I thought it was an issue with my Gotek floppy drive, but I've since replicated the issue with a physical floppy drive. I'm not able to boot up OS/2 1.x images, be it Microsoft or IBM. I can read the images just fine from various versions of DOS, also on the Gotek. I've tried IBM's originally crappy AT adapter, the WD1006 I currently have fitted on my 5162, and an Adaptec 1542CF, and all yield the same results.

The specific error I get is "A disk read error occurred. Insert a system diskette and restart the system."

I thought I'd spice it up a bit - the same floppy disk that fails on the 286's, works on my ThinkPad 755C (albeit with a trap, because of having more than 8MB of RAM). Same goes for a clone Pentium motherboard. So I'm wondering if it's specific to AT/XT 286 firmware, or something involving how the interface card reads from the drive?

 

[krebizfan]

The version of OS/2 that shipped on 5.25" disks should boot on a 5170 with at least 1.5MB. The 3.5" disks had PS/2 drivers by default. Your disks may have patches for both speed and IDE controller to run on the 755C. I tried looking up what the patches would have been applied in order to revert to the original but can't find that.

Check if the disk has another DISK01 file with different size than the DISK01.SYS being used for the hard drive access on the Thinkpad. DISK01.SYS would normally be the AT version of the hard drive controller driver.

 

[pkhoury]

But here's the problem - I'm only talking about booting from a floppy. I haven't even got to the hard drive stage yet, and we can both be assured 1.0, text only, never had support for IDE. My problem is I'm unable to boot up using my OS/2 floppy and/or disk images, be it GoTek or physical drive.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Stupid question. Let's assume that the 5162 stock setup has support for 360K and 1.2M floppy formats. Are you booting from one of those--or are you trying to use a 1.44M or 720K format? OS/2 1.x is sensitive to the darnedest things.

 

[pkhoury]

I had it set, using GSETUP, to use a 1.44MB. On the 5170, I don't have a battery hooked up to it, so it's just the bare board, but I was able to replicate all errors I got on the 5162, despite not having previously specified that 1.44MB.