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IBM PS/2 Model 25 No Boot :/

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Raven

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I got an IBM PS/2 Model 25 today for $35 ($15 for just the keyboard, my friend wanted to keep it but I desired the compact model M very much...)

Anyway, when ya turn the machine on it complains and asks for a floppy via a lovely little animation, I press F1, it scans whatever disk I may have in, then boots to the basic on the ROM.

I have a 720K flop that I put multiple different images on, and none of them booted. I manually made a 720K dos 6.22 disk, no go, imaged dos 3.21, no go, and the IBM PC-DOS images I could find were all odd sizes and errored when I tried to write them.

I tried the special IBM (name escapes me.. configure?) disk, but the image was 1440K while the drive is 720K. I was writing it to my 720K disk before I realized it was the wrong size image and it didn't work either.

Ideas?
 
There is a good PS/2 Model 25 web site at http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm

That and the list at http://mastodonpc.tripod.com/ibm/type.html suggests that because you have a 720K drive in your machine, that you have the early type of PS/2 Model 25 - the one that is kind of like an XT.

It would be good if you could let us know of the full model number (e.g. "8525-G04") so we know exactly what we're dealing with.
According to the http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm site, the model number is on the front of the machine.

If your PS/2 Model 25 is in fact the early type, no hard drive was supplied with it, and so maybe the animated graphic is informing you that the machine needs a boot diskette (which if the case infers that you may have a faulty/dirty diskette drive).

But the animated graphic may be indicating that the machine needs the Starter diskette. On the http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm site is a 'Starter Diskettes' link and in there is a 720k sized image for the 8525-XT starter diskette.
 
The animation is just purely it wanting a boot disk. It's the same to "Disk boot failure. Replace and strike any key when ready."
 
Raven said:
I have a 720K flop that I put multiple different images on, and none of them booted.
Click to expand...

That would mean that You have an another computer with a floppy - so does this other computer boot from the floppy You made ? Check and You'll know if it's your disk images or the floppy drive (they do get faulty after this lot of time).

Besides, if You want a 720k floppy, format it from DOS (as in DOS 6.22) as 720k and with system files (check the command line options, /s is for system, don't recall for 720k). No images and stuff, it should just boot to command line.
 
modem7 said:
There is a good PS/2 Model 25 web site at http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm

That and the list at http://mastodonpc.tripod.com/ibm/type.html suggests that because you have a 720K drive in your machine, that you have the early type of PS/2 Model 25 - the one that is kind of like an XT.

It would be good if you could let us know of the full model number (e.g. "8525-G04") so we know exactly what we're dealing with.
According to the http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm site, the model number is on the front of the machine.

If your PS/2 Model 25 is in fact the early type, no hard drive was supplied with it, and so maybe the animated graphic is informing you that the machine needs a boot diskette (which if the case infers that you may have a faulty/dirty diskette drive).

But the animated graphic may be indicating that the machine needs the Starter diskette. On the http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm site is a 'Starter Diskettes' link and in there is a 720k sized image for the 8525-XT starter diskette.
Click to expand...

Agreed that William has put together a good amount of information about the Model 25 (in this case, based on the 8086 8MHz CPU, with a 720Kb drive and MCGA graphics). The display is just referring to a boot disk - There is no battery on the 8086-based Model 25 (the only PS/2 without an RTC) or configuration to set up. Many Model 25s didn't include a harddrive (I had a few that were set up to "RIPL", Remote Initial Program Load, using a NIC with a boot ROM), and were also used in the school environment before or alongside the Eduquests.

The 8086-based Model 25 can be upgraded to a PS/2 1.44Mb floppy drive (of the right type). For a truly functional system, a harddrive needs to be considered as well. Dumping into ROM BASIC says there is not a harddrive present, or that it has gone out (common with the original drives).
 
Well I didn't realize when I was writing that there were multiple models, but mine does definitely have a hard drive. It has a single 720K floppy in addition to this.

It's model number(s) on the front sticker read:

"TYPE 25-004
S/N 88-53840"

If any other information could help you help me, just ask. I was puzzled as to why the HDD wasn't booting it right off the bat, but I suppose it may have been wiped or simply become unbootable with age or glitches.
 
michal said:
That would mean that You have an another computer with a floppy - so does this other computer boot from the floppy You made ? Check and You'll know if it's your disk images or the floppy drive (they do get faulty after this lot of time).

Besides, if You want a 720k floppy, format it from DOS (as in DOS 6.22) as 720k and with system files (check the command line options, /s is for system, don't recall for 720k). No images and stuff, it should just boot to command line.
Click to expand...

This was the first thing I tried, with DOS 6.22 from a Win98 machine written to a 720K that was already formatted as such.

Edit:

Judging by the table of stuff, my M25 should have this row of specs:
PS/2 Model 25 8525-004 4/8/87 1695 23/2/93 ISA8 2 2 8086-8 512K 640K MCGA 720K None C

It differs a bit, having a HDD and only one floppy, so it seems it was upgraded by whoever owned it back then.
 
If you can't even boot from the 720k Starter Diskette, then that suggests a diskette drive problem.
The hard drive not booting could be a separate problem.

Have you tried cleaning the heads of the diskette drive?
 
Especially the poorly designed Model P70. I can't remember exactly, think out of 3 systems, I only have a single working floppy drive. I will have to fire them up and review the various problems with each one. One had our beloved hard drive stiction problem. It had it when I purchased it. Of course, I didn't know at the time that it was a super common errror with certain sized hard drives. I go out and get a replacement (it was expensive). What happens? You got it, stiction problem with the replacement drive too. At this point, think it is consolidate systems time, as in take working parts from each of the 3 systems and end up with one working P70. These ESDI drives are too expensive for me.
 
I was using a proper single sided DD disk, 720K for these tests. I did only try one disk, but it worked fine on other machines reading and writing...

I'll try cleaning the floppy drive when I get the chance, and post back again.
 
Booting a PS/2 25

Booting a PS/2 25

I'll try to detail what's important and then separate into what's just my own gibberish..

Important Stuffs..:

* I've had issues getting my PS/2#25 to run unless the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS were written properly.
+ PART OF CONFIG.SYS ~ SHELL=A:\COMMAND.COM A:\ /E:256 /P
+ PART OF AUTOEXEC.BAT ~
SET PATH=A:\
SET SHELL=A;\COMAND.COM
SET COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM

~~~ I couldn't get my AUTOEXEC script to run unless it had at least those elements in there already. It would just boot to an A:\> prompt.

How I did all that.

* Steps
+ figured out how to crack weak copy protection scheme on OEM dos 6.22 disks & duplicated
+ took computer scraps and made a dedicated DOS machine, installing the DOS OS straight from the DOS OEM disks.
+ put tape over a 1.44 MB floppy to disable the 2nd read head, formatted using /S under old DOS dedicated PC
+ wrote out boot files *.SYS *.BAT.. etc.. added some EXE's and stuff to run..

You're making image disks from online resources are you not? I think that your sensitive little PS/2#25 is arguing with what your floppy is trying to tell it. I think you need some floppies from a pure source.. (insert witty clip from TRON movie from here).. I'd be more than happy to supply you with a boot disk as well as * cough * secondary disks if you needed.

If you have OEM DOS disks or can get some from someone closer than I am, do so, and I'm guessing it doesn't like the image written FRANKLIN clones you are feeding it. Setup another PC with DOS, format them, set up the boot files properly, and if your drive is really ok, it should start booting and working for you.

~~~ Ramblings and stuff that's not as important..

My high school had two computer systems in it as well as a typewriter lab. Our PC section was a never ending supply of networked PS/2#25 computers with typing programs, and other educational crap. I helped put a stop to that. After a server crash, I was the one that made the network work again, cause the people running it didn't understand DOS batch files.

I also included in the redux, QBasic as an option for students to use, and there happened to be a slot machine program from Fred Sexton Jr. that was put in the shared directory that teachers found very distracting.

I got my PS/2#25 from an auction if I remember correctly, or a rummage sale, and I was playing old demo programs, and coding MCGA graphics stuffs and toys in QBasic on it.

The DOS computer I used to make my recent set of boot disks for my PS/2#25 was a computer I set up for my kids to play with. I loaded it with a custom boot menu program in QBasic that would run any of the games I loaded on the PC. I even installed Win 3.11 from an online source on it for them to tinker with. What really saved me alot of time was using a ZIP external LPT1: drive to move large chunks of data onto the DOS computer very quickly.

I did try very diligently to get the PS/2#25 to use the external ZIP drive so I could have a set of mega storage to work as an online resource, but that experiment is now fuzzy to me, so I figure it didn't work.

I do have a LPT1: data transfer cable, so I did get the PS/2#25 to do a INTERLNK, INTERSVR network to my DOS computer which had drive space and stuff to play with.

You cannot obviously run 386 OP CODE assembly code on a PS/2#25, cause it's an 8086 processor, but there is a plethora of old demos and odd toys you can get to run on it.

I didn't get the demo of Out Of This World to run on it, which is Tandy Compatible (did get that running on my old 1000HX which was so cool), but that's my problem I suppose.

If you wanna use GWBasic or BASIC (BASICA), i've found that GWBasic requires BASIC.EXE and BASICA.COM to be present in the same directory with some flavors of GWBasic. Depending on what flavor of all those 3 files you have, you will get various types of support, SCREEN 12, SCREEN 7, etc etc,.. it's quite a messy affair.

I dunno if I got SPEECH.COM (speech synthesis) to run on the PS/2#25 or not. Probably.

Anyways,.. the PS/2#25 has fun 320x200x256 color graphics which is fun to play with, .. you can program for that mode in anything.. I grew up with it.. fell in love with it (besides my 1000 HX), and got myself one to play with. (Although it's in Illinois and I'm in New Mexico now..)

I can make the boot disk for you, but I cannot test it because my PS/2#25 is away from me, but I will do my best to make it as true to what I had before as possible.

Kudos..



Kiyote!



[Edit]

I've never had any problems putting tape over the 2nd hole on 1.44 MB diskettes to use them as 720Kb disks.
 
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