johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) (12/25/90)
I have an early PS/2 model 50 with an increasingly sick disk. I managed to reformat the disk using the low-level utility on the reference disk (the one you get to with ctrl/A) and it seemed to work OK, albeit with more errors than it likes. But now it won't boot at all, gives me a 162 error at boot time. Is this a dead controller, a dead disk, or both? I'm reluctant to put any money into this thing, MCA disks are horrendously overpriced. (I might pull the hard disk and run it as a diskless client, I already have it on a network.) Any advice on a 162, or failing that sources for reasonably priced disks and controllers would be welcome. The mod 50's disk controller has a specially placed drive connector, and the drive has some special mounting hardware to make it fit in the case -- replacement parts that don't fit inside aren't very useful. -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650 johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {ima|spdcc|world}!iecc!johnl "Typically supercomputers use a single microprocessor." -Boston Globe