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IBM PS/2 8086 Model 30 - (8530-002) : Trying to recover data

upgrad3d57

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Oct 6, 2020
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I have a 54mb hard drive that appears to be connected through the ISA riser versus an onboard IDE. Trying to boot I get a "Non-system disk or disk error". I've tried to use various boot floppies formatted to 720k. It was able to boot one time, but the HD was unaccessible at that one boot. Anyone up for helping me troubleshoot this? I have some data on there from 30 years ago that I would like to recover if possible. (First basic scripts and some short stories).
 
Try Norton Disk Doctor. (DOS version)

That program will check for damage on the Hard disk.
Fi Boot sector corruption or partition tables failures.

Send me your email address and you get the software.
Just 112k very small but very effective.
I use it also on my XT machines and up.
 
I have a 54mb hard drive that appears to be connected through the ISA riser versus an onboard IDE. Trying to boot I get a "Non-system disk or disk error". I've tried to use various boot floppies formatted to 720k. It was able to boot one time, but the HD was unaccessible at that one boot. Anyone up for helping me troubleshoot this? I have some data on there from 30 years ago that I would like to recover if possible. (First basic scripts and some short stories).

Have you opened up the system and checked to see if all the cables are still connected, and all of the boards are still firmly seated?

Do you get a hard drive error on startup?

You mention "hard drive connected through ISA riser" -- is the hard drive on the card itself, or attached via a ribbon cable?
 
The Model 30 does not have an IDE disk. It might look like an IDE disk but it isn't. If you boot DOS3.3 and run FDISK can you read the partition table?
I suspect the disk does not spin up and this is your problem.
 
Thanks everyone for the response. I've been on vacation for the past week so I will batch reply to everyone with this. I will also attach photos later this morning to help visualize.

MauriceH: I'll send you a PM. I might have to even try to find some 720k floppies as I'm wondering if the 1.44's with the tape might cause issues.

WBST: Do you think that a dead bios battery could be an issue? Part of the compounding problem is it won't even boot to a floppy disk. (Could be the fact that I'm not making a correct boot floppy. Trying to fix that by bringing up a windows 98 computer.)

Trixter: On the main board at the bottom, there is what appears to be an ISA riser card that has 3 slots on it. (And a honking big soldiered on battery.) On the bottom slot of this card is another (appearing to be) ISA card that is spans from the front plastic support bracket to the rear expansion slot bracket. This has 2 cables to the rear on the side that feed under the card. The other side of the cables come together to a blade style female connector to attach to the male blade connector of the hard drive.

g4ugm: I'm pretty sure this is not an IDE drive as it's a blade style connector. It almost looks like a first gen SCSI or something. Maybe proprietary? Also: I think the drive might be spinning up because every time I try to boot I here a short "Whir Whir, ZIP" sound. It sounds to me like a disk check.

Thanks again for the responses. I'm feeling a little more confident that there might be hope of salvaging.
 
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