Installing [INSERT OPERATIVE SYSTEM] But everything goes wrong is a pretty cool series, and honestly sums up my experience with anything software related, at least pre 2000s software/OSs.
[INSERT APPLICATION/OPERATIVE SYSTEM]* that also happened once with the Unoficial Windows 98 Service Pack 3, but lmao, why for him always something goes wrong
Hi there, some of these old mid-90ies BIOSes had a setting called "Anti-Virus" or "Virus Protection" or something like that in their setup. What this would do is basically only make the MBR write-protected. This would also interfere with any attempt of an OS installation. Maybe this is the cause with the failure on the Packard Bell?
Hint: in 1993, there were no ATAPI/IDE CD-ROM drives. That version of OS/2 simply can not use them, as it does not know about them at all. It will only find SCSI or one of the few proprietary CD-ROM drives.
Correct. The same happened with OS/2 Warp 3.0. It only had a limited set list of CD drives it could work with. IBM brought out a fix for the two installation diskettes so that it could deal with ATAPI drives. With OS/2 2.x I always found it easier to hunt out a SCSI optical drive or to sigh heavily and create installation diskettes, hoping that the installation wouldn't hang on diskette 18 or so, as it would.
Are you sure. I could be wrong but I think by 1993/94 there were IDE CD ROM drives. Pretty sure the Packard Bell 486 (in the same form factor) my parents had didn't have a SCSI CD ROM drive.....
@@alexdhall Those had proprietary connectors, like Sony or Mitsubishi, often found on add-in audio cards. ATAPI came out a little later. OS/2 Warp 3.0 came out in 1993 and had to issue a later fix for ATAPI drives.
@@egbront1506 I suspect you are correct. Since I no longer have the Packard Bell computer (Force 440?) and it’s single speed CD drive, I can’t confirm. I’m pretty sure the double speed that replaced the single speed drive could of been IDE…
@@alexdhall I wouldn't necessarily bet on it. I got my first computer in 1995, an Escom. It didn't have an optical drive so I saved up for one. Scsi drives were unaffordable and my first one, which was a 2x Cdrom, had a Mitsubishi interface.
OS/2 pre-warp versions had terrible compatibility issues. They REALLY wanted to run on an actual IBM PS/2 and reacted terribly to clones. I remember trying to install it at the time and getting an error message I looked up in the manual -- it wasn't compatible with the keyboard controller. The. Keyboard. Controller.
Hey man, keyboard controllers are complicated. There's, like, polling and stuff. Interrupts! Almost forgot about interrupts. Them too, whatever they are. Then there's those wacky Japanese keyboards with the extra keys and funny squiggles and stuff. Man, those Japanese people must be smarter than me because I just don't understand those squiggles. What was I saying? Oh yeah! Keyboards are complicated and stuff. Couldn't possibly just follow a standard or anything. Not like those Japanese keyboards output exactly the same keycodes when you press the matching key or anything. Nope. Too complicated to even half-ass to get through setup.
I had a keyboard controller error too, on my Everex 386 computer. Later I got OS/2 working on another PC, but it didn’t like Cyrix processor, so it would crash a couple times a day.
Glad to see more coverage of OS/2. My personal favorite operating system. Yeah it's a tough one to get installed right, it even takes some research to create disks for it.
kinda surprised that retro enthusiast community for OS/2 haven't devised a more trouble free installation for it - some sort of .iso image that could be downloaded and put onto a USB stick.
I think you need to stay under 504MB for the first partition (drive c), or it won't boot. After the first few diskettes it should reboot from the hard disk into a graphical setup program, but in your case the boot process just hangs.
I second that. I remember having a similar problem installing os/2 in a VM some time ago. Making the partition smaller solved the problem. I think I got away with a 1gb disk and hpfs.
I was watching this video and having the same flashback from OS/2. I don't recall the specific sizes anymore, but this is definitely where I would start.
@@alles_muss_anders_werden Do you mean this specific version, 2.1? Because I have a Thinkpad T42 with OS/2 4.52 installed on a single 60GB HPFS partition.
I'm preparing to launch a new channel in a few months mostly focusing on "well known but somehow under represented on RU-vid" retro tech, and I'm current scripting a bunch of OS/2 episodes with the aim of doing "OS/2ber" in October.
I did post a quick video of the new OS/2 ArcaOS installed on a virtual machine. It's actually not too bad, but quite expensive at $129 USD for the personal version.
Early versions of OS/2 are notoriously difficult to install on newer hardware. The main problem as others have already pointed that IDE-CDROM Support is non-existing or at least extremely limited. The system is looking for a small list of vendors (those used on IBM machines of the time) and most of them are CDROM-Drives with specific controller cards. The best option would be a SCSI-CDROM. You could try a diskette installation. Large amounts of RAM, large HDs and fast CPUs are an invitation for crashes. VMs are equally problematic because they are as fast as the system they run on can offer.
That mention of using a VM reminded of the existence of QEMU, there might be a better chance using it than other VM hypervisors on running OS/2. Edit: Found a video of someone trying to install OS/2 2.11 on QEMU 0.15 that worked here on RU-vid
You need to remember that IDE was actually polar opposite to what IBM wanted with OS/2 which was released with their PS/2 systems which basically were relegating the ISA bus (which we now call IDE) to the lower lower systems. They even had a PS/1 for all those technologies in a kinda Macintosh killer (NOT!) version, released in 1990 (PS/2 was released in 1987, 2 years before the NeXTCube which basically changed everything) If you ever open a PS/1, you'll notice it has IDE and ISA and VGA, instead of XGA. But since OS/2 was for the PS/2, the choice of CD ROMS and hard disks were basically what the Micro Channel team thought was convenient for them. OS/2 not being made in C, meant all drivers were x86 machine code, so there's no easy way porting things over.
i just want to point out the difference. "at least 4MB of memory". nowadays, if you have anything less than literally 1000x that, your PC is at a standstill. technology really is an interesting thing
Yeah, there has been more layered in over the years to deal with security matters, as a for instance, but still, one really wonders why a multi-tasking, protected mode OS today requires a minimum of 4GB (and 8GB to be actually usable) whereas in the early 90s they could run in 4MB of memory. What did we get in return for churning through all that additional memory? Well, anything related to a browser and accessing the Internet by far causes the biggest memory foot print, but that is a user-mode application that just uses the TCP/IP stack, so what's the excuse of the typical contemporary OS kernel such that it requires an order of magnitude more memory just to boot up to a running state? My 2007 MacOS computer could run OS-X in 1GB and still allow for using an app or two. And it is very similar to modern desktop OS in functionality and look and feel. Admittedly it required 2GB to be something that could be considered a daily driver. But 2GB wouldn't run anything today unless just booted Linux into a plain text mode console. (Maybe the GUI desktops of today are using far more memory and doing a lot of memory caching.)
I can totally feel your frustration. Even though it was a completely different scenario, it reminds me how I fought with my computer for a week trying to install any OS and in the end it turned out to be a hardware issue that prevented the installation from completing fully.
OS/2 2.0 and 2.1 can run on fast machines. I've got it working on a Pentium 4 2.8GHz. You need to do a bit of work first before you install. Your fast machines are running into two problems. First, the early floppy drivers included in OS/2 1.x through 3.0 have timing issues on fast machines. IBM released updated drivers in the 4.0 era that is backward compatible to 2.x. You'll need to download them and replace the files on the Install Diskette. Second, you need an updated IDE/ATAPI driver to access your CD-ROM and IDE hard drive, as well as an ATAPI CD-ROM filter driver. Again, IBM released updated drivers you'll need to replace/add to the install disk (the drivers for 3.0 are backward compatible with 2.1). Then, you'll need to edit the CONFIG.SYS file on DISK 1 to call the new drivers.
Michael: try checking the partition table in windows 98 or Linux to see if the first partition was marked as bootable and if they installed the os/2 code in the boot sector. As others have mentioned it could be that a the "virus protection" in the bios is preventing the first sector of the disk from being overwritten completely using bios functions (would be irrelevant in Linux for example) worst case scenario you boot Linux from CD and map the hard drive directly into the VM and do the install that way to completely bypass the BIOS.
That was my OS of choice for many years, only switched to Windows for 98 when I wanted to play 3D games and bought a Voodoo card. I used to run a BBS with OS/2 and still was able to play Doom and do other things all at the same time. It was a game changer for it's day but not without it's faults.
I remember getting my first CD-ROM drive for Windows 95. I believe in 92-93 there would be only some proprietary drives that would connect to interfaces in sound cards (remember those?) and probably SCSI drives. So your CD not working is probably normal. As for the boot problem, I would try with a hard drive < 500 MB or failing that, create a primary partition < 500 MB on your existing drive and marking it as "active" in fdisk.
The video was so funny to watch with all those floppy disks attacking you and the constant errors and lockups. This is exactly how computing was in 90's. I remember spending more time fixing or getting my computer to work than actually using it. My Ctrl+Alt+Del keys were worn out (bashed to bits) on my keyboard within a year.
I love this video, most relatable video you ever uploaded, no, as whole YT ever had. As IT guy (noob for 20 years) I can feel the same pain and struggle you had, and sometime feels like whole world is against you. I wish you better luck and less troubleshooting in the next project.
11:22 Maybe there is some option in the BIOS named "Boot to OS/2" that you need to enable. I usually see this option from AMIBIOS/AWARD bioses. 12:10 IF I recall, there is a key combination that allows you to see what files are being loaded. 14:49 Probably just like Windows NT 3.1, it only liked SCSI CD-ROMs. Just guessing... :P
I have a suggestion. this could almost be a video in itself. go to vogons and get the evergreen spectra utilities cd. use the bios update utility on the disc to get the 'MR bios' for your system. may help. MR for those who don't know created bios updates for unsupported systems and sold bios images for a while in the 90s to allow features that the hardware could technically do but the oem would not patch in.
But not just OS/2, that's happens with almost anything to do with hardware. I used to attend the OS/2 User group at meetings at IBM headquarters in NYC, they gave us free donuts and coffee. Used OS/2 Warp 4.5 until 2004 then went to Linux.
OS/2 2.1 didn't support ATAPI CD-ROM drives and the stock IDE driver is notoriously picky about drives. You need to update the install boot diskette with more modern drivers and you should be able to install from CD. Even "modern" releases of OS/2 were a PITA with hardware. I couldn't get a circa 2003 eComStation release working on a circa 1998 AMD K6-2 machine without problems. That was with modern drivers!
that was the time where admins need knowledge - today they need a big mouth and billy bob spongebob communities - take a look in those boards within the EXTRANET
I really enjoy the content you've made recently, also this video specifically was really interesting to watch till the end. Keep up with the great work Michael Mjd!
Just some hypotheses: - Maybe the CD version failed because the boot floppies did not match the CD image? E.g. your CD image might have been for the full version and the floppies for the upgrade. You could've tried with floppies imaged from the same source as the CD. - I suspect that the issues formatting with HPFS *and* the lockup when formatted with FAT is due to the HDD being too big. Ideally you should try a smaller drive (I'd suggest smaller than 500 MB), but making a sub-500 MB partition on the current drive might just help as well. These are just wild guesses, but... maybe.
ב''ה, it's been too long, I actually thought I might be peeking in to blather on one of the Warp videos where my experience started, but if memory serves HPFS in that era did have some partition limit that, while impressive then - I want to guess 4GB without taking a search? - is still cramped by modern standards. I could be off by a few orders of magnitude, but once disks jumped from "a gigabyte" to 80GB+ the issues came hot and heavy for a while. Also, while I actually liked and got quite familiar with OS/2 fdisk and whatever IBM's boot manager was called, it did have a few layout and alignment quirks and gotchas, as well as what other partition types it would deign to recognize at all.
@@josephkanowitz6875 there was a problem with the harddisk limits in those time - both drivers (HDD/CD) must be new copied and setup correctly for 2.1 - all Warp Versions should be use newest drivers >> Manual copy & setup correctly = RTFM
I'm actually glad that you decided to upload this video anyways! Some channels don't do that, and we only get to see the video ideas that succeed. But what about the video ideas that don't? Maybe they're interesting, or an entertaining watch, or someone in the comments has the solution.
This world be an excellent video for next DOSCEMBER. It totally reminds me how much -fun- it was to install a new hard drive or OS under DOS. Next we'll manually try to fit TSRs in high memory.. 😁
I remember back in the early 90s at tech college here in Australia. We had some IBM PS/2 computers in the computer lab that were running OS/2 1.1. At the time that was the first version I had ever seen and used. Most of the other computers were just running old MS-DOS and WIndiws 3.1.
If I remember correctly, early NT-Versions only supported SCSI-CD-ROM-Drives, I would not be too surprised if the same was true for old OS/2-Versions..
mitsumi singlespeed must in the past handish told in the config.sys - that was the 1st todo in the past the floppyset can be made from the cd with xdfcopy
I was in hysterics watching this. I'm so sorry that you had all the issues, Michael, but it was better than any sitcom on TV. Seriously though, and it's been a LONG time since I installed OS/2, I believe that the flaw that you experienced at the end was a text error when it said to remove the disk and press Enter. I believe that it SHOULD have said remove the disk and insert the NEXT disk and press Enter, that would set the cycle to continue the process. You might try that in a later video. Of course I could be entirely wrong.
I remember these headaches, OS/2 is very picky about cd drive used. I ended working though 3 cd drives and ending up making the floppy install set. I feel for you. Tony Trumbell
23 years ago I tried installing the same version of OS/2 on a IBM PS/2 486... ended up exactly where you did 34:20. It was a lost cause. Tossed the OS/2 box with all the manuals and disks in the trash after a couple days of trying to get it installed.
This brings back so many memories of my first OS install attempt of windows 95 when I experienced my first all out hard drive failure. I am so damn happy operating systems are so much easier to install now a days!!
not even mad at you, i experienced the same exact thing a few months ago, i was fortunate enough to use os/2 & os/2 warp when they were originally available and i was feeling nostalgic but that feeling ended in frustration as i couldn't get it installed on hardware nor in a virtual machine so i feel your pain/frustration.
I feel sorry for Michael. I mean these "But Everything Goes Wrong" movies are entertaining as hell, but I work on old computers myself a lot and understand exactly his pain and annoyance when that old crap just won't work for no damn apparent reason and you're in a dead end
I can confirm that OS/2 2.1 did not support my CD-ROM drive out of the box around 1994. I believe it had a Mitsumi interface. If the problem was the bootloader failing to install, you might be able to use a Grub floppy. I used a bootloader called GAG in the past when it failed to install. Hopefully OS/2 has an fdisk /mbr equivalent. It was a 25 MHz 486 SX with 4MB RAM, which might have been upgraded to 8 at that point. HDD was 200 MB. OS/2 ran poorly on that system. Probably needs a 486 DX2 at 66 MHz.
This is bringing back memories. I purchased the version of OS/2 2.1 that required Windows 3.1 to be installed first back when it first came out. (I was only about 12 and saw OS/2 on Computer Chronicles and wanted to try it.) I didn't have a CD-ROM drive yet so I had to go through the 17 floppies like you would have. I ended up screwing up the entire drive and had to start from the very start, installing DOS then Windows then OS/2. It took 3 attempts and formats and reinstalls of all of the OSes for me to get it up and running properly.
Great fun video! Thank you! Also, if my memory is correct, and if it hasn't been suggested already, how about trying to create a partition that is smaller than 500 MB. Also, if my memory is correct, partitions that were larger than 500 MB couldn't boot without LBA. I do not think that OS/2 supported LBA way back then only CHS. Also, if you manually create the partition, remember to make it active/bootable as mentioned by another viewer. Might also check the BIOS settings to see the mode is CHS instead of LBA or the reverse.
I admire the efforts you went through to try getting OS/2 installed. I tried doing just that years ago inside a virtual machine and I already gave up at the first screen when it would not detect things even after minutes of messing around. And better yet, no one at this point in time seemed to have a good tutorial on how to make this operating system actually work either. People think Linux is picky but it is nothing compared to OS/2.
I remember installing OS/2 Warp 4.5 and it took me probably a month to get a working install on a 75mhz AST machine back in the 90's. Funny story about that. When I was a kid I used to call this random guy at IBM and ask questions about OS/2 Warp and after probably the 10th call because I was probably an annoying child he sent me a free boxed copy because he was so nice. He said he was going to send me a demo disk, but a full copy arrived in the mail. I was stoked! This version even came with a headset for voice recognition.
I remember a time when I used to sweat when I was watching the disks work through installation progression because they would likely error out if they were more than 4 years old and the magnetism was inaccurate. You really weren't a typical consumer. You needed to know how it works!
Dude you gotta try mailing in to buy some of the stuff from that catalog. You’ll probably get it back in the mail, but that stuff is so cool that it’s worth the shot.
As you correctly state, the upgrade version would have worked. The software check happens late in the 2nd phase of the setup. After disk preparation, it should have rebooted into a graphical installer and continued with the remaining disks. Not having DOS and Windows 3.1 pre-installed will however mean that you don't get the DOS/Windows support. For your next attempt I recommend to get slightly older hardware if possible, ideally 486. - Check BIOS and disable antivirus and look for an OS/2 setting. - Make a 500Mb C drive with DOS 5 and Windows 3.1 (NOT 3.11) - Then run the OS/2 installer, that will both pass the upgrade check AND ensure you get the cool Win-OS/2 support feature working.
You can then make a partition D and format as HPFS or whatever :) If your Warp copy is the blue box (built in Windows 3.1) you can go straight to HPFS on C and clean install. Also, Warp 3 should support IDE CD-ROM natively. If your Warp 3.0 is the red box, same applies with C drive containing DOS 5 + Win3.1 (NOT 3.11). Or upgrade over 2.1.
I can feel your frustration. Great video, though! It showcases the joy of computers perfectly. :> At that point in time SCSI was way better supported than ATA for optical drives, which actually makes sense since ATAPI wasn't standardized until ATA4 in 1997. I ran into the same issue when installing Windows NT 3.51 onto my 486. Wouldn't recognize the ATAPI CD-ROM at all. With SCSI? No problem, even with the weird VLB SCSI adapter. It also didn't like the ATA harddrive, so I put in a SCSI HDD as well, which worked instantly. In the end it was way too much effort for an OS that doesn't really have any applications, but hey that's the game we choose to play isn't it? :) Wish you the best for your move! It's always a draining process but hopefully the new place will be so much better that it's worth it!
Man, your videos were always entertaining to me. A few days ago I had a similar issue but with a newer OS, Windows 7, after cloning from my dying hard drive. Like this video's title says, EVERYTHING WENT WRONG. I installed the OS back in August, and forgot to switch to AHCI mode in the BIOS, so it was IDE all along; I used regedit to switch, which worked yes, but several apps no longer worked such as BlueStacks until I reinstalled it; The whole cloning process took over 2 hours, I was on the edge hoping we wouldn't get a power outage, all the while having to rely on those cheap MOLEX to SATA adaptors since my PSU only had 2 SATA power cables with one populating my disc drive and its cable was too short; After finally installing, BOOTMGR was missing, I had to yet again use my install media to fix the boot loader. Can't tell if the process just went awfully wrong, or if the fact I had Linux Mint in a dual boot setup messed this cloning procedure. And then the OS was finally fixed, which again took another 2 hours + 1 extra hour to do chkdsk with all variables I could do to make sure nothing was wrong, and THANKFULLY it wasn't. What I'm trying to say is, to whoever thinks these videos are fake or whatnot, things can really go terribly wrong. And I hope OS/2 returns someday, with less stress next time. Cheers, MJD.
Excellent series of install tries. The user experience of version 2.1 was pretty much like this unless you had the right hardware. It's interesting that OS/2 1.3 had been thoroughly reviewed for hardware timing dependencies. If you can find the floppies for OS/2 1.3 it will install on some modern processors and boot in a fraction of a second.
Ahh such good memories. I remember buying this and installing on my 386. It was so amazing the things I could do with it. The biggest problem was that it was ahead of its time and most hardware couldn't run it well enough. Amazing what you could do with 8MB, yes megabytes of memory.
Back in those days, you had to make sure your partition didn't go beyond 1024th cylinder. So, like others already pointed out in the comments, you could try with a smaller partition (I'd bet for something around 300MB or so). Great video!
My dad and I spent hours backing up our PS/1 before trying to install OS/2 Warp he got from work. Never could get it installed, though I still have the box. Maybe one day I'll try it again, but after watching this I'm not sure I have much hope. 😂
Hey man, love your videos, have to tell you though, my wife says you sound like Sour Bill from Wreck-It Ralph! 🤣 I can't say she's wrong. Keep up the awesome work!
Welcome to a brand new OS installation on MJD! Featuring: lots of hanging, a computer without a face, flying floppy disks, and the star of the show, IBM OS/2, which never fails to fail! Starring Michael MJD who brings the magic of MJDness to every episode and a special guest, Michael's inner Linus. Watch 'till the end to find out if anything has ever worked today!
I got to be very good at getting Warp-and-newer to run on virtually anything back in the day... but alas, a lot of that knowledge has hopelessly faded in 30 years. Hell, I had to brainstorm for a half an hour to remember what AS Number we used to use. In any case, when I first got hired late in '93, we had 2.1 on about 15 networked systems... predominately to use DB2/2. It was the first time I had seen OS/2 since atrocious 1.1. We had a strict specific hardware we used 486/66s with 32M and 2.1 was still like pulling teeth to get it installed... then had to use Dialogic Telephony boards and development tools to develop our own software to access the database. Such a hassle... Warp made things so much easier... by just working, relatively speaking. I honestly have NO idea how the turd-brain who I replaced ever got these things working initially... as I imagine a 1/2 or 3/4 of a million dollars got thrown in a hole before I got there... and the couple times I met the guy he could barely handle a spreadsheet, let alone OS/2 and all the custom bits. In retrospect, it was a trial by fire for me, but honestly, there was no way we could have done what we were doing in anything but OS/2 with our budget. The company slowly pivoted into being an internet provider, and OS/2 was a big part of our systems until I left in 2004. I had a Warp 4.52 desktop at my home until at least 2010... when it got stored away... I miss it. In any case, I would imagine trying to get 2.1 or earlier to run in 2022 would be virtually impossible without an IBM PS/2.
having to make all of those floppies was a common problem, so was the keyboard locking up. OS/2 won't work with IDE or SATA CD-ROM drives, but also won't even work with sound card CD-ROM controllers from that era.
Are you sure that the burned CD's are OK? Seems like most CD's sold today are crap. Even if they verify good during burning, they can get corrupted by just inserting them in a CD drive. I had this problem when trying to install Mac OS Tiger on my iMac G3 from CD. Got so many random errors due to the bad CD's. Burned the same images on a different brand and it installed without any issue.
I used to run OS/2 2.0 and even on hardware from that era, the installation process was incredibly finicky and would regularly crash at random intervals during installation (usually after swapping out 15+ floppies) If by some freak chance you got through the installation off the 20+ floppies then the os generally ran ok.
OS/2, my source for cheap high quality 3.5“ disks back in the day. Still going to school and low on pocket money, I remember our local electronics store had palettes of unsalable OS/2 retail in disk version for clearance, asking just a few bucks. We actually left the boxes, manuals, etc. directly at the store’s paper waste disposal, just storing the 35 disks per box in our backpacks. OS/2 seemed to be so unpopular in retail, that these guys sold the package for less than one pack of no name 3.5“s back then.
Experiences like this were just insanely common back then. Sometimes you just weren't going to figure it out until you started to reverse engineer the assembly or called customer support or something. Kind of like how video games were back then. You buy the game and start playing but now you are supposed to put a fish in your left nostril for some reason and there's absolutely no hint of any kind to suggest that action, so the game simply couldn't be played without some cheat book.
This brings back memories of me trying to install a version of Warp that came with some Escom machines on a P60. It had a grey external sound system with cd-drive in the middle, you could put the monitor on top of it. Anyway, similar thing, it freezes after a while but also starts to spin the CD-rom faster, faster and faster and i'm 12 years old and panicking while i think i am breaking my parent's new machine, and ctrl-alt-del does nothing. I called IBM and they eventually had me make floppies using another pc. That version of Warp was pretty decent, it even ran Warcraft in a DOS box and other stuff in other Windows. But, with no games for OS/2 that me and my brother cared about, the P60 went back to pure MS-Dos, we got a replacement from Intel because of the Pentium bug, new cpu eventually overclocked to 75Mhz and upgraded to MR-Bios, a 3DFX with some more Ram and we played a lot of Magic Carpet and 7th Guest on it. Ahh. Those were the days.
