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IBM PS/2 Model 30 hard drive issues

falter

falter

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Jan 22, 2011
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I know the drill on these - I've had a PS/2 model 30 for ages, and finally got an 8513 and decided to set it up for visual display. It boots up and I can open any of the software that was already there, but of course when I tried to load new stuff onto it, while it copied fine, it immediately had problems reading back, doing that noise it does as it reads the sector over and over again.

My question is this - is it worth trying a low level format on one of these?
 
If it’s got enough bad sectors it might fail the low level format from the reference disk, and then you’ll be stuck. It might be a situation where spinrite would be useful. Will it even run on a PS/2?
 
Looks like I have a more immediate problem - I cannot boot the reference disk in this PS/2. The drive apparently has some issues.. it reads things at random - it can copy some files off a disk but not all. I've confirmed the reference disk works because I can boot it on another computer.. just not this one.

I'm going to have to write IBM. I was told MCA stood for Millenia Certified Appliances - this thing hasn't even made it 40 years yet! :p
 
Stupid question.. my PS/2 model 30 floppy drive appears to have the same 40 pin bladed edge connector the non working drive on my Model 70 has. Would I be safe to assume it's compatible with and could be used in the Model 70?
 
Aren’t the 8086 model 30 720K drives and the 286 model 30 1.44MB drives? Which do you have? Are both capable of using the 1.44MB drive?

Also, didn’t the later 386 and newer systems have 2.88MB drives?
 
jafir said:
Aren’t the 8086 model 30 720K drives and the 286 model 30 1.44MB drives? Which do you have? Are both capable of using the 1.44MB drive?

Also, didn’t the later 386 and newer systems have 2.88MB drives?
Click to expand...

I may be a little off base but I thought the 2.88 drives were Japanese back then.
 
The PS/2 Model 25 originally came with a 720K drive but does support 1.44 MB drives as well, so the same should be true with the Model 30, which is basically identical except lacking a built-in monitor.
 
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