IBM PS/2 Model 76 - larger SCSI drive? And a bootloader...

[southbird]

I recently obtained a very nice PS/2 76. Problem is that it came with a tiny 270MB HDD. I have a 386SX that came with a ~400MB, so there's something wrong here.

IIRC PS/2s use regular old SCSI (one of the few things compatible about them), but I'm wondering if anyone knows how big I can get in there. I mean, I'm thinking of a couple gigs or so, but I'd like to make sure that's "safe" before I invest in it. I'm planning on loading up a few operating systems on it so I have sort of a rotational set I can play with.

Related to that, I'm wondering if anyone knows off-hand a quick, easy, and free (always free or abandonware, whatever) that will run on a 486 and switch around partitions for multiboot of normally not multi-booting OS installations like I want to do here. I know they exist but it's something I've never really done. I suppose GRUB does this but I've never installed it outside of a friendly and helpful Linux installer and am not sure of the complexity of it.

 

[IBMMuseum]

I recently obtained a very nice PS/2 76. Problem is that it came with a tiny 270MB HDD. I have a 386SX that came with a ~400MB, so there's something wrong here.

IIRC PS/2s use regular old SCSI (one of the few things compatible about them), but I'm wondering if anyone knows how big I can get in there. I mean, I'm thinking of a couple gigs or so, but I'd like to make sure that's "safe" before I invest in it. I'm planning on loading up a few operating systems on it so I have sort of a rotational set I can play with...

Most likely you have a ¨Bermuda¨ Model 76 with planar SCSI, the ¨Lacuna¨ models were more rare and would need a ¨Patriot¨ (rebranded Future Domain SCSI adapter) or ¨Corvette¨ (IBM Fast-Wide SCSI-2 controller) in one of the slots to make it a ¨76s¨ (the ´s´ is for SCSI, ´i´ means just the planar IDE on the Lacuna-based units). If a single-drive system (where the ¨IML¨ partition is on the drive), it can be 3.94Gb at largest. Larger size drives can be used, just that they can´t also have the IML partition.

One and 2Gb drives for these units were also common...

It is important to note (although a moot point with multi-boot programs) that the later IBM PS/2 systems with SCSI have an initialization in the setup routine that has to be done whenever the drive sequences are changed (like the SCSI ID, adding, or removing drives)...