We have an old IBM 350 with a P75 chip and 32
MB of ram running OS/2 WARP v 3. It crashed
and now no windows like shell. I've edited
config.sys to Protshell CMD.exe and
runworkplace CMD.exe to get OS/2 to boot from
the hard drive C:\ but that gives us only the
command interpreter. Before I reinstall OS/2 v3
WARP, and reformat my hard drive, I wondered if
there were any fixes you could recommend. I've
already tried taking the PMSHELL.exe file and
overwriting it with a PMSHELL.exe file from OS/2
v 2, and no surprise that didn't work.

We have a DOS partition, D:\, but it has the format
FAT, and C:\ has the HPFS format. Is there
anyway to say create a zip file, say z.zip, copy it to
the FAT drive partition D:\, and reformat the HPFS
hard drive, reinstall OS/2, and copy z.zip back to
C:\. I know the characters have different bit
addresses in HPFS and FAT, but surely there is a
way around this.

Darren
Darren A. Thompson
Researcher
UCSC
1156 High St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
voice: 831-459-3390
fax: 831-459-2935
http://people.ucsc.edu/~ministry

Since you already are able to boot to a command line, you may try to repair the damage done by the crash to the OS2.ini file.

Cd to the C:\OS2 directory and check for the existence of the following files: OS2.INI and INI.RC. Note that OS2.INI may be a hidden file, thus use DIR /A to ascertain its presence.

Assuming that you are already in the C:\OS2 directory, type the following command exactly:

MAKEINI OS2.INI INI.RC

It will reinitialize all Workplace Shell objects and possibly will make you happy by the shell reapearing after a reboot.

If that does not work then your only other option is to recover from an archive that you may have already done from the Settings Notebook before the crash. Upon an initial boot OS/2 displays a small white square at the upper left corner of your screen. BEFORE the square disappears, press SIMULTANEOUSLY and hold the Alt and F1 buttons on your keyboard. You will be presented with several options including the original archive (done automatically by OS/2 when it was first installed) and any other archives that may have been done by you or anybody before you.

Note that you will loose any icons that you had if you choose a relatively aged archive-- such as the one done originally by OS/2. The installed applications continue there, however, and can be started from the command line.

If you decide to reformat the OS/2 partition, the most straightforward manner is to download the compressed file IDEDASD.EXE from IBM and update diskette 1 with the drivers contained in the compressed file. Follow the instructions provided once you expand the file of reference.

If you need an overview on how to update diskette 1, check out the following:
http://www.computing.net/os2/wwwboard/forum/1829.html