PC/Server 500 - P390

[g4ugm]

Well I have started fiddling with a PC/Server 500 with P390 mainframe card. It came with a duff VGA card which I replaced and then the fun started. It reports duff RAID config and won't boot. It also refused to read any floppy disks so I couldn't even start to debug.

Sadly it has a "Media Sense" floppy disk drive so I couldn't try another drive. Fortunately a cleaning disk from E-Bay that arrived yesterday seems to have restored some functionality and I can read many disks, but its still not perfect.

I will try and take some pictures and post later...

 

[lowen]

Well I have started fiddling with a PC/Server 500 with P390 mainframe card....

Fun. I have an Integrated Server 390 here, and it has some 'quirks.' First, you need a particular version of OS/2 (Archive.org has the media, I think). Then you need the P/390 software to install on top of OS/2. Then you need something to run on the 390 itself, and some of that is available easily enough.

There is some information at http://www.cbttape.org/links.phtml and at http://www.reliablecomputer.com/syspatch.html

Some downloads can be found at ftp://p390.ibm.com/ but the actual install files aren't there.

The master site for looking at P/390 stuff, though, is ps-2.kev009.com/p390/

 

[g4ugm]

Thanks for responding and passing the links. I was aware of the links, but actually I had forgotten cbttabe had some P390 bits. . I believe I have the necessary OS/2 and P/390 software. Several folks on comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware and the cctalk lists are helping. As you say the Mainframe software can be an issue. I was actually thinking of trying to get MUSIC/SP working on it...

I am a bit sad that included SCSI disks don't seem to want to work, it would be nice to just boot OS/2 and start running. I think I might try and "by-pass" the RAID. I have a SCSI2SD and was thinking of trying that. Not sure if the SD card will stand up to the load.

 

[g4ugm]

I would also like to hack a GoTek Floppy adaptor to see if I can get it to work as a media sense drive. Then I would not be beholden to the un-reliability of PS/2 style floppy drives.

 

[NeXT]

Remember that the PS/2 era drives (not the 2.88mb ones) need a recap before they'll work reliably. Also doesn't help to go in there and lube the rails and clean the heads with a Q-tip. I've come to not trust cleaning diskettes.

I am a bit sad that included SCSI disks don't seem to want to work

Are they crashed or are they just not spinning up? Either the bearings are frozen or they are waiting for a spin-up command from the controller.

 

[g4ugm]

I have 2 of the 2.44 disks. One that I cleaned with a QTIP is totally dead, and always has been. Maybe a re-cap, or perhaps its just got damaged heads. The one that was in the machine when I got it was cleaned with a cleaning disk from Maplins Clearence site on E-Bay (they are a sort of UK Tandy(ish) store) and it some to work reasonable well, but I fell very nervous with floppies.

As far as I can tell the disks all spin up, peering in the back I can see that their green LEDS all go solid, but the array controller has marked 4 of the six as "defunct". If I take a disk out the system knows its not there to talk to it.

I think I might need to get out a PC with a SCSI card and do some tests off-line. RAID is good at stopping things going wrong, but when it does go wrong it stops you using any of the normal recovery tools...

 

[g4ugm]

Well after getting advice on the PS2 Newsgroup I now have a running server that boots to OS/2.... Well it did once
Some of the drives are slow to come on-line, but if I let the memory test run through they seem to come up OK...