Just re-built my 17 year old computer... how to start ReactOS testing?

[Tobi]

Hi,

i finally got my super old PC working again.

1) CPU: AMD Athlon K7 1333 MHz@1000 MHz
Due to an old CMOS battery the Board resetted all configuration to default and the CPU now only runs at 1000 MHz. But I remember that System having temperature issues at a high workload and I think I'll keep that settings for the next time. Maybe it also has advantages when debugging?

2) 256 MB DDR memory

3) Elitegroup K7S5A mainboard with SiS 735 chipset (version without integrated audio or LAN)

4) Matrox G550 AGP graphics adapter

5) Realtek 8029 based LAN adapter

6) Aureal Vortex 2 sound card

7) IBM 10 GB and Quantum 60 GB HDDs

8) LG 4163-B CD/DVD writer and Matsushita CD-ROM

9) A 3,5 " FDD drive

Booting that system up into Windows XP and seeing all that ancient data from an earlier myself has been a little bit spooky...

I already ordered the following:

a) serial RS232 nullmodem cable
b) PS/2 mouse (keyboard already is PS/2)
c) CR 2032 lithium battery for the board (but as mentioned above I don't plan to use it)

Did I forget something?

How to start then?

Basically I plan to connect the nullmodem cable to another computer, monitor the output via terminal session and try to install the latest daily ReactOS build on that machine. What terminal software and what COM port configuration is recommended?

[oldman]

You should find all or most of what you want here: A_layman's_guide/How_to_get_a_debug_log

[Quim]

Hi,

i finally got my super old PC working again.

1) CPU: AMD Athlon K7 1333 MHz@1000 MHz
Due to an old CMOS battery the Board resetted all configuration to default and the CPU now only runs at 1000 MHz. But I remember that System having temperature issues at a high workload and I think I'll keep that settings for the next time. Maybe it also has advantages when debugging?

2) 256 MB DDR memory

3) Elitegroup K7S5A mainboard with SiS 735 chipset (version without integrated audio or LAN)

4) Matrox G550 AGP graphics adapter

5) Realtek 8029 based LAN adapter

6) Aureal Vortex 2 sound card

7) IBM 10 GB and Quantum 60 GB HDDs

8) LG 4163-B CD/DVD writer and Matsushita CD-ROM

9) A 3,5 " FDD drive

Booting that system up into Windows XP and seeing all that ancient data from an earlier myself has been a little bit spooky...

I already ordered the following:

a) serial RS232 nullmodem cable
b) PS/2 mouse (keyboard already is PS/2)
c) CR 2032 lithium battery for the board (but as mentioned above I don't plan to use it)

Did I forget something?

How to start then?

Basically I plan to connect the nullmodem cable to another computer, monitor the output via terminal session and try to install the latest daily ReactOS build on that machine. What terminal software and what COM port configuration is recommended?

Congragulations to give your old PC alive again to use ReactOS!
Be patient with ReactOS use (if it works).

I have one PC that BIOS problems resetted and locked date into factory date. But it ReactOS works well on it.
The problem now is that the VGA monitor died. And all monitor in which I tested do not pick the signal well (so bad).

If you get a RS232-RS232 or RS232-USB cable, could you test vgal builds (http://vgal.ru.com/) and get debugging log from RS232 when running "HDD Low Level Format Tool"? I cannot find any RS232 cable yet, to do it myself.

When using LiveUSB , use Plop Boot Manager from a CD or floppy.
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html

https://jira.reactos.org/browse/CORE-14178
https://jira.reactos.org/secure/attachm ... LLFT06.jpg

Don´t forget to submit in JIRA screenshots or photos and debugging logs.
And for auxiliar and necesary OS (to recover screenshots and debugging logs in case of ReactOS unbootable situation) use a 32 bits GNU/Linux distro like Puppy Linux, old LXDE distos , others, and old linux .

[Tobi]

...and here are my first results:

Before testing, I have deleted all partitions and formatted both HDDs using an old Win 98 boot floppy with fdisk and format.com. So I got an empty 60GB drive C: and an empty 10GB drive D: with FAT32 as file system.

Image file:
ReactOS 0.4.10 + new USB from vgal.ru.com blog

1) The ReactOS setup tool did only detect the primary IDE slave harddrive, a late 90s IBM 10 GB. The primary master, a Quantum Fireball 60GB has not been available for installing ROS.

2) The system boots into the boot menu. Selecting any entry ends up in an ascii message box shouting "opening hive file failed [OK]" I can't boot the system further.

During install, I managed to write a 70-something KB log file. Created via true serial ports and a real nullmodem cable (Destination: 2008 IBM Thinkpad with docking station). How do I submit that to JIRA correctly?

[Tobi]

Hm,
I opened two JIRA tickets. But the JIRA guys stated that 4.10 was too old.

-Will I get serial output when I install the latest 4.12 RC...someting boot CD build?

-do I have to or should I prepare the system when I try another ROS version? e.g. formatting or deltreeing the harddrives?

[Quim]

...and here are my first results:

Before testing, I have deleted all partitions and formatted both HDDs using an old Win 98 boot floppy with fdisk and format.com. So I got an empty 60GB drive C: and an empty 10GB drive D: with FAT32 as file system.

Image file:
ReactOS 0.4.10 + new USB from vgal.ru.com blog

1) The ReactOS setup tool did only detect the primary IDE slave harddrive, a late 90s IBM 10 GB. The primary master, a Quantum Fireball 60GB has not been available for installing ROS.

2) The system boots into the boot menu. Selecting any entry ends up in an ascii message box shouting "opening hive file failed [OK]" I can't boot the system further.

Test using 0.4.13 builds and also BtrFS filesystem. And to get debugging logs and screenshots (ImpPt key and paste in Paint program) you can also use a GNU/Linux distro like Puppy Linux or others and just copy the files from HDD to USB stick.

At time vgal will release 0.4.12 special build...

You should also ask in chat.reactos.org to assist you better.

[oldman]

I opened two JIRA tickets. But the JIRA guys stated that 4.10 was too old.
-Will I get serial output when I install the latest 4.12 RC...someting boot CD build?
-do I have to or should I prepare the system when I try another ROS version? e.g. formatting or deltreeing the harddrives?

The revisions with RC in, are release candidates, that branch is being worked on in readiness for the official release. If you get one of these, then get the bootcd, which will be something like this ReactOS-0.4.12-RC-24-ga57363f-iso.zip.

I would go for a bootcd from https://reactos.org/getbuilds/, which will be something like this reactos-bootcd-0.4.13-dev-384-gae2a85d-x86-gcc-lin-dbg.7z.

With a dbg build, you will always get debug output when installing, but once you have installed the system, then you will have to select ReactOS (Debug) at the appropriate screen, to get serial debug info.

Yes, I would reformat the hard drive again.

I would format as fat32, but you could try btrfs if you like.

[Tobi]

Before upgrading I did a format C: /q.

The 4.13 dbg build now detecs the 60 GB drive. And it's finally possible to boot to desktop and get serial debug output.

I think FAT32 is the better choice since its also supported by Windows. I can even exchange small system files using an old Win 98 1.44 MB floppy boot disk... That's the fastest way to boot into something like an OS on that machine. Using Linux for btrfs would take a longer time since I had to use the DVD drive or an USB stick, and the board only supports USB 1.0...

At the moment I use the 60GB Quantum drive C: for ReactOS. On the 10GB IBM drive (D:) some binary hardware drivers from the manufacturers are stored. It is also a test if ROS leaves these driver files untouched...

[Quim]

some binary hardware drivers from the manufacturers are stored. It is also a test if ROS leaves these driver files untouched...

Don´t forget to back up these drivers before doing anything!
And upload them into your Google Drive /Onedrive , Telegram,...

I hope that there will be Open Source drivers that will replace these propietary drivers from old or even ancient hardware.
Take party testing a lot drivers working or not (take debugging logs all the time) under ROS.

I will see if I can recover one computer I have from 2003 and buy a RS232-USB cable and test....

[Quim]

I think FAT32 is the better choice since its also supported by Windows. I can even exchange small system files using an old Win 98 1.44 MB floppy boot disk... That's the fastest way to boot into something like an OS on that machine. Using Linux for btrfs would take a longer time since I had to use the DVD drive or an USB stick, and the board only supports USB 1.0...

To test ROS using BtrFS filesystem, Puppy Linux, SliTaz, or other tiny distro burned in a CD-RW could be used to boot as auxiliar OS (in case of ROS failure to boot)...
Plop Boot Manager installed in the HDD is also useful (in these old machines) to boot LiveUSBs without BIOS support (only works in FAT32 / NTFS) and then installing ReactOS just using "Install VBR only ".
Also you could try using NTFS , just enable it in ROS...

[oldman]

I think FAT32 is the better choice since its also supported by Windows. I can even exchange small system files using an old Win 98 1.44 MB floppy boot disk... That's the fastest way to boot into something like an OS on that machine. Using Linux for btrfs would take a longer time since I had to use the DVD drive or an USB stick, and the board only supports USB 1.0...

I have an hard drive partitioned Btrfs for partition C: and Ext4 for partition D: and I use re-writable DVDs for installing ReactOS.

At the moment I use the 60GB Quantum drive C: for ReactOS. On the 10GB IBM drive (D:) some binary hardware drivers from the manufacturers are stored. It is also a test if ROS leaves these driver files untouched...

In all of my testing experience, I do not ever remember having had any corruption of other drive partitions, whether they were on the same hard drive or on another hard drive.

Also you could try using NTFS , just enable it in ROS...

As far as I am aware, NTFS is read only, there is no write for it yet in ReactOS.

[Quim]

I have an hard drive partitioned Btrfs for partition C: and Ext4 for partition D:

Is ReactOS installed on your hard drive (BtrFS partition) toguether with ext4 partition?
I had problems booting ReactOS when an ext2/3/4 partition exists in dual boot.

[Quim]

As far as I am aware, NTFS is read only, there is no write for it yet in ReactOS.

It seems that thanks to Trevor Thompson´s work , some write support exists in ROS.

Before you build ReactOS, you must enable NTFS write-support if you want to test it. This is because write-support is still experimental; there's still a lot of things that could go wrong and using this driver could result in catostrophic data loss.

To enable write support, open the folder you checked out my branch to, and navigate to boot\bootdata\ and open the hivesys.inf file. Find the section that starts with
; NTFS filesystem driver

Underneath that, find the line that says:

;HKLM,"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Ntfs","MyDataDoesNotMatterSoEnableExperimentalWriteSupportForEveryNTFSVolume",0x00010001,0x00000001

Simply remove the semicolon at the start of that line and save the file and build ReactOS as usual. This will add the registry key needed to enable write support.

https://reactos.org/blogs/gsoc-ntfs-2017-work-summary

And from the following post:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10972&p=137666&hili ... fs#p137666

ReactOS successfully (without any crashes or asserts) booted from NTFS volume through NTLDR, using the ReactOS' own NTFS driver with write support enabled.

[oldman]

Is ReactOS installed on your hard drive (BtrFS partition) toguether with ext4 partition?
I had problems booting ReactOS when an ext2/3/4 partition exists in dual boot.

HP Compaq nc 6120 (laptop) with,
Partition C: (Btrfs) has ReactOS installed into it.
Partition D: (Ext4) has some software stored on it.

I have had no trouble booting with this setup. I have had another computer's hard drive partitioned with more partitions (Btrfs, Ext2, Ext3/4 and Fat32).

Using Btrfs as the main file system (which I have been using to install ReactOS on for some time now), I have only had one revision fail, but I do not remember on which computer it was.

I do not dual boot.