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- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!torn!newshost.uwo.ca!uwovax.uwo.ca!baer
- From: baer@uwovax.uwo.ca
- Subject: OS/2 problem: cannot load OS2CHAR.DLL
- Organization: University of Western Ont, London
- Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 02:06:28 GMT
- Message-ID: <1992Aug23.220628.1@uwovax.uwo.ca>
- Sender: news@julian.uwo.ca (USENET News System)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: hydra.uwo.ca
- Lines: 37
-
- I have been running OS/2 2.0 on my laptop (386dx-33/8mb, 120mB divided into
- 2 FAT partitions) for a month and a half without too much difficulty. From
- some earlier difficulties I had with ill-behaved apps on my desktop, I
- have been in the practice of backup up os2sys.ini and os2.ini -- simply
- restoring these files usually gets me out of any troublesome situation.
- Well, this weekend (fortunately, after I had completed all of my
- out-of-town work -- otherwise I would have been left hanging with no way
- to run my apps) OS/2 died on my when I ran a game that normally worked
- under OS/2 (I also had MS Word for Windows running at the same time -- perhaps
- it was the combination that caused the problem). The system hung, and a
- cold boot was necessary to get it up again. Result: OS/2 logo appeared,
- then a message: os2CHAR.DLL could not be loaded, check to make sure
- file is in root directory or in path specified in config.sys ... system
- stopped. At this point,everything died (three finger salute did not work..
- only a cold boot). Fine, I tried restoring os2sys.ini and os2.ini, but
- got the same result. I did so after making sure OS2CHAR.DLL did, in fact
- exist (and, for that matter, I made a copy of it on the root directory
- of my boot drive *and* in c:\os2 for good measure. Same problem; same
- message. I worried for a bit that the failure to load might be related
- to a system memory problem, though would have expected a different message.
- (I would have tried to throttle back the memory chips to 1 wait state, but
- there doesn't appear to be a setting to that effect in the laptop's BIOS).
- Finally, I took a drastic step I haven't had to resort to since the first
- couple of weeks I worked with OS/2: I reformatted the entire drive with
- DOS (I run dual boot), then reinstalled OS/2 from scratch. (Good thing
- I have 2 partitions -- I was thus able to avoid reloading most apps, though
- I did have to spend a couple of hours recustomizing WPS). So far, OS/2
- works like a charm again (no errors, no problems). Mmmm.
- Any clues out there as to what happened, how I might avoid it again and/or
- how I might correct the problem with some less drastic corrective action?
- Thanks for any help. Respond via e-mail or via posting.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Douglas Baer, Department of Sociology,
- University of Western Ontario, London, Canada N6A 5C2
- Internet: BAER@UWOVAX.UWO.CA
-
-