PS/2 8525 FDD troubles

[Aeroraptor]

Hi all,
A friend of mine has a PS/2 8525, specifically type 25-004, that he wants to get some files off of. Problem is, around 1996 the floppy drive started to quit, so he never got all of it off. My first instinct would be to just remove the hard drive and put it in another PC, but unlike the 25SX the 25-AT (8086) doesn't use IDE, it uses a weird IBM proprietary pseudo-IDE thing. So I took the floppy drive out and found the first problem, the foam head stop was totally loose and flying around, so I took it out. I then got some rubbing alchol and cleaned the heads lightly, but it still does the same thing when you try and boot it. It clicks the drive once, the light briefly lights, and then it gives the abort/retry/fail error.

Any idea what I can do to get this thing off the ground? I'm having tons of problems sourcing a new/used one...

John

 

[MikeS]

Hi all,
A friend of mine has a PS/2 8525, specifically type 25-004, that he wants to get some files off of. Problem is, around 1996 the floppy drive started to quit, so he never got all of it off. My first instinct would be to just remove the hard drive and put it in another PC, but unlike the 25SX the 25-AT (8086) doesn't use IDE, it uses a weird IBM proprietary pseudo-IDE thing. So I took the floppy drive out and found the first problem, the foam head stop was totally loose and flying around, so I took it out. I then got some rubbing alchol and cleaned the heads lightly, but it still does the same thing when you try and boot it. It clicks the drive once, the light briefly lights, and then it gives the abort/retry/fail error.

Any idea what I can do to get this thing off the ground? I'm having tons of problems sourcing a new/used one...

John

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Does the system boot & run? If so, you could probably use a com port to transfer data.
What kind of floppy drive is it? Might be able to replace it.

mike

 

[Aeroraptor]

Yes, the system boots and runs DOS 4, but there are no comport transfer applications on it.

It uses a standard IBM propritary PS/2 drive, 720k, with an edge card type connector.

John

 

[JohnElliott]

The DRDOS 6/7 file transfer program (FILELINK) can replicate itself onto a machine with no file transfer software; I'm sure the MSDOS equivalent can too. You link the machines with a null-modem cable, set the COM ports to the same speed, and then type FILELINK DUP on the machine with FILELINK and CTTY COM1: on the one without.

 

[Aeroraptor]

That's quite an interesting proposition, and I even happen to have a DB9/DB25 (two on each end) null modem, and a USB-Serial adapter. Can you give me some more info or a guide?

 

[MikeS]

That's quite an interesting proposition, and I even happen to have a DB9/DB25 (two on each end) null modem, and a USB-Serial adapter. Can you give me some more info or a guide?

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Google Intersvr - the /RCOPY option installs it on the remote computer.
You might have problems with that USB adapter though; no "real" com port available?

m

 

[JohnElliott]

That's quite an interesting proposition, and I even happen to have a DB9/DB25 (two on each end) null modem, and a USB-Serial adapter. Can you give me some more info or a guide?

I don't know if the USB will work, because all my PCs have proper serial ports. Here's an example using the DRDOS utility, FILELINK (it seems to run happily under just about any DOS).

1. Install FILELINK on the computer you can get to.
2. Set the correct COM port and speed.

C> FILELINK SET COM1: 9600

3. Connect the computers together.
4. Start the duplication process.

C> FILELINK DUP

FILELINK then tells you the commands to issue on the other computer. If all goes well, there'll be a delay followed by various countdowns and you'll end up with a copy of FILELINK.EXE on the other computer.

5. On the computer that just got FILELINK, set up its serial port as above.

C> FILELINK SET COM1: 9600

6. Make one computer the slave:

C> FILELINK SLAVE

7. And on the other computer, issue commands to copy the files. If, for example, you made the PS/2 the slave, then use RECEIVE commands on the master:

C> FILELINK RECEIVE [source] [target]

eg

C> FILELINK RECEIVE C:\*.* C:\PS2 /S

will pull the whole C: drive from the slave computer into a directory called C:\PS2 on the master.

The walkthrough above should work on all versions of FILELINK. If you've got the version that came with DRDOS 7, FILELINK also has an interactive mode where you can do all of the above through menus rather than command lines. It can also do a parallel transfer over a Laplink cable; this is much faster but only works properly if the two computers run at similar speeds.

 

[Aeroraptor]

Well that sounds pretty swell.

I loaded up Dr. DOS 7.0.3 in vmware, and I can have windows mirror through the USB-Serial adatper (it's a prolific chipset so it's *very* good) with abolutely no problems, I tested out filelink on one of my boxes and it seems to work great. I should be going back to the place with the PS/2 soon, so that should be no problem.