Cannot Install BeOS 4.5 or 5.0 Professional

Be, Inc.
1

Hello,
I know this is not dealing with Haiku at all, but I am having some aggravating problems during the installation processes of BeOS 4.5 or 5.0 Professional. Basically, I made a Install CD that after burning says “BeOS_Tools”. I then go into my BIOS (AWARD) to set the boot order from the CDROM. The drive recognizes the CD, but gets stuck at the 3rd to last loading bubble with the message that goes like bees cannot find a volume. I then used a BeOS Floppy (custom-made) to get the Be Bootloader and to boot from the CDROM. After I select this option; it goes all the way to third bubble and says “Place the BeOS install CD in the CDROM Drive.” I have changed CD Drive, Bios Settings, and all the others I can think of. I am new to this and I ultimately want to DualBoot BeOs 4.5 or 5.0 alongside IBM OS/2 Warp. Am I not installing this correctly? Thanks.

My System;
Intel Pentium III Katmai 450MHz Slot 1
BCM IN440ZX Mainboard
30 GB Quantum Fireball lct15
CD-ROM/DVD ROM
512MB RAM

2

It is a bit tricky to create a BeOS CD. IIRC you need to burn two tracks, the first one being a small bootable ISO9660 partition (with the BeOS_Tools you mentionned), and the second one a BFS volume.
If you used just the .ISO file, this was probably not set up right. If you used a “cue” file or burnt the two tracks manually, it should be ok.

3

Thanks for getting back to me. I just had the .iso file for BeOS 4.5 and I burnt it using Nero Burning ROM. I might have the .bin and .cue files for BeOS 5.0 along with the .img file. Do you have any instructions on how you suppose to burn all tracks? Thanks.

4

Try make boot floppy:
http://betips.net/1997/09/09/creating-beos-boot-floppies/

Excuse me, I hasten.
I hope in this web page you will find helpful tips.

As far as I remember, boot image in the floppy must be with a CD support. And the main image of BeOS in the CD must be written correctly.

5

Once, I had to (full) install BeOS 5 Personal Edition ( http://www.tycomsystems.com/beos/beospe.html ) as follows:

  1. Install Windows 95/98 to a computer;
  2. Install to Windows BeOS 5 Personal Edition for Windows;
  3. Boot BeOS 5 Personal Edition, find In the ‘Be Menu’ ‘Installer’ and install BeOS to the computer, even with rewrite of Windows (if I’m not mistaken).
6

Ok, can I use my XP SP2 CD? I can use it to easily partition the drive and install xp sp2 to it. How do I install BeOS within Windows? On the BeOS 4.5 CD, setup.exe loads up this Partition tool for BeOS and to make a custom floppy? Is this way it should go? Thanks.

7

Some useful links here:

http://besly.de/menu/search/archiv/cddvd/bootablebeoscd_eng.html
http://besly.de/menu/search/archiv/cddvd/zetalivecd_win_eng.html

Greetings Lelldorin

8

Try a different BeOS image, instead of the “BeOS_Tools” image. There’s several available, including the very nice BeOS Developers Edition 1.1. I never had any luck getting the “BeOS_Tools” to boot from the CD. It would freeze on the first icon on the BeOS 5.0 boot screen. After editing the cue file a bit, it would freeze on the next-to-last icon. That was on a Pentium3 Intel 440GX computer. Other BeOS images worked fine, including Dano, PhOS, BeOS 5.0, BeOS Dev. Edition 1.1, and the Max Edition versions.

9

Forgot to say, you can view/edit cue files using any text editor.

10

Sounds like BeOS_Tools is the extendet cd with tools, not the system cd

11

That’s what I was thinking as well, the BeOS_Tools image is not the real installation image for BeOS 4.5. I know that I am not supposed to ask this, but does anywhere know where I can get the Installation image for BeOS 4.5 or 5.0 Professional? Thanks.

12

Pulkomandy’s archive links has all kinds of distros. Do a search on his website here:
http://pulkomandy.tk/~beosarchive/

Here’s a good write-up on making a bootable CD for the Developer’s Edition 1.1, and it’s also good info for getting other distros to boot from CD:
https://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-188389.html

I tried it and it worked fine, very easy. I think I even like this version better than BeOS Pro 5.0, seems a bit snappier. Anyway, for the Developer’s Edition 1.1, download and unzip two files (deved_1_1_main.img.zip and deved_1_1_boot.img.zip), copy/paste a few lines into a simple cue file, and burn with Nero pointing at the cue file. Same method worked with other distros, just requires editing the cue.

(The Developers Edition 5.04 available in the archives isn’t that good, and is apparently older than the Dev. 1.1 and made by other people, regardless of its name)

13

BeOS 4.5 you can’t install in Windows, only BeOS 5 Personal Edition. And in Windows XP to boot BeOS 5 Personal Edition you need BeOS boot floppy.

Another interesting thing with BeOS, if you install it on the HDD on one computer, the HDD that you can move to another computer and load the BeOS.

14

The installer is not included in BeOS 5 PE.

15

I think it is included. I remember using it.

16

I think he use the pro edition, because in germany it was sell with 2 discs (System and Tools). 23ZRo does not ask for the personal edition to install on windows, he write he want to install the pro edition.

I does not know version 4.5 is running on non ppc systems, because with the 5.0 starting support for standard system hardware.

If he use the install cd of KochMedia, he need to use the tools cd as installer and the system cd as tools cd, the printing on the cds are exchanged.

17

Yes, I check, “Installer” not in Be menu (no link), but in the “boot/beos/apps” you can find it.
This is about BeOS 5 PE.

18

The difference between PE and Pro is minor.

19

Indeed, I stand corected, I just looked in the image.be file and the installer is there, just not in the apps menu.

20

Here is an update: I downloaded BeOS 5.0 Professional from PulkoMandy’s website. It had both the .bin and .cue files, and Nero Burning ROM worked great. I used a CD-RW and I booted the computer using the 4.5 boot diskette and put the BeOS CD in. It gets stuck on the search icon saying invalid dimension or parameter, but I think I will just have to make a BeOS 5.0 boot floppy to fix that. Does anybody have BeOS 4.5 Pro with the .bin and .cue files? I am wanting 4.5 due to this OS being shipped with old AST and Microworkz PC’s from the past. Thanks.