🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi

My brother has just won an old IBM PS/2 Model 50. It has an 80286, an internal 
3.5" floppy, a 20 MB HD and an _external_ 5.25" floppy.

The machine does not recognize the floppy drives.

Occasionally I have been able to get it to do a 'DIR' on the 3.5 inch drive, 
but 99% of the time I get a 'General Error... abort, retry, fail'.

I found an ibm document on Simtel

'Personal System/2 Reference Guide'

dated June21, 1989, and it explains all of the different PS/2 configurations 
that existed then. For the model that I am looking after, it appears that 

'To ensure proper operation of the diskette drive, this model requires the 
DASDDRVR.SYS device driver when running DOS 3.30. The driver is not required 
when running OS/2 or DOS 4.00.'

(from the above-mentioned document)

And it just so happens that the machine _is_ running DOS 3.30.

What I have here is a catch-22: I need the device driver (and it is _not_ on 
the machine) or DOS version 4.0 or later.... but even if I do get hold of the 
driver, how do I get it onto the hard disk if the floppies aren't recognized?

There are two ways that I can think of:

1. Laplink, or equivalent, or kermit via the serial port (is there a serial 
port on these machines? How can I tell the difference between a serial port 
and a parallel port? Or is the serial port the other mini-DIN port on the 
back of the machine next to the PS/2 keyboard port?)

2. Take the HD out of the machine and put it into some other machine and copy 
the device driver (or later version of DOS) on that other machine. This would 
require the use of either a PS/2 that did not need this particular driver to 
use the floppy drives, or else some other PC that can use PS/2-style hard 
disks.

Any clues, hints, places to look for solutions, would be appreciated.

Dr Phil Ryan
Ship Structures and Materials Division
Defence Science and Technology Organization, Australia

phil.ryan@dsto.defence.gov.au			+61-(0)3-626 8265
(nb the '(0)' indicates the number for an Australian internal call)

DISCLAIMER: The contents of this message do not necessarily represent
the Commonwealth of Australia or the Australian Department of Defence.