If you are searching for drivers specific to MS OS/2 1.3, it may help to search IBM OS/2 1.3 instead, as v1.3 came very soon after MS broke off the collaboration with IBM, favouring their own Windows 3. Other than that, I can't help.

First, what version of MS OS/2 1.3? the Standard Server or plain Standard (Non-Server)? I mean, both have proper built-in aha154x/16x/1740 support, albeit you need to do have them in the boot floppy too for proper SCSI HDD support, and, if you wish to have a higher resolution, well, do you have a real ATI Mach32 card with at least 2mb of video memory?

Hi both,

Thanks for the replies. Yes - have been looking for both IBM and MS OS/2 driver options. I think I'm nearly there given the boot screen errors above.
Should have been clearer on the OS version. MS OS/2 1.3.1 (includes for LADDR I believe) server.
The 1740 is working fine, the SCSI hdd boots, and works fine, as does the SCSI CD drive. The tape drive is also detected by the SCSI bios, its just the OS/2 & Sytos elements I'm struggling with.
Screen resolution I'm not too fussed with as this will ultimately be a lanman server - its just got an generic ISA VGA card with 512k that works absolutely fine for what I need.
Will keep plugging away.

MS OS/2 1.x uses a different driver model from OS/2 2.x. The 1.x disk drivers are 16-bit (.SYS or .TSD files), while OS/2 2.0 disk drivers are 32-bit (.ADD). IBM OS/2 2.0 can use IBM 1.3 drivers, but it doesn't work the other way around.

In addition, MS OS/2 1.3 disk adapters also need .BID files to define disk access and geometry calculations. You'll need to look for MS OS/2 specific drivers that have both .SYS files and a .BID file.

Also, MS OS/2 1.3 can use LADDR-based drivers as well as IBM's drivers. IBM OS/2 1.3 can't use LADDR-based drivers as I understand it.

Here's a great article on the MS OS/2 1.3 driver model: https://www.os2museum.com/wp/ladders-and-dragons/

Check out page G-1 of this document for installation instructions for tape drives on MS OS/2 1.3:

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/sytron/Sytos_Premiu … _1ed_199408.pdf

The instructions aren't great, but this might point you toward the correct drivers.

Thanks - you've confirmed my understanding on the LADDR stuff - hence going for 1.3.1 over 1.3 which didnt have LADDR (afaik).
The AHA174X.BID included with the base distribution is what I'm using, and its working well for the HDD and CD drive.
I guess I'd hoped that the driver I'd stumbled across up thread was going to behave on a LADDR'd 1.3, (with the above BID) but will rule that out for now.
The os2museum site is a good read, and have read that one already, I hadnt found that sytos PDF so will read that one now. Suspect I might need to list which drivers are available and then do more of a search for those drives, possibly the DDS2 drive I have is too new and wont have them.
Thanks again.

Brief update, on the very, very slim offchance someone happens to be in the same situation.
It so turns out after much more googling, that Compaq also rebranded this drive as their 4/16G DAT drive, drivers for which are included in Sytos Premium.

I don't use tape drives, but could you provide your working config.sys file contents (or just the relevant line entries) for future folks with the same issue?

Of course

The relevant driver which came from the Sytos Premium SW is CQL_DATR.VSD - per the Sytos instructions you then also need TAPE.TSD also. This worked for me on MS OS/2 1.3.1