Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390

Sat May 26 15:15:52 CDT 2018

Folks,            

Well in case any one has the slightest bit of interest, I have now plugged
the RAID card back in and after replacing on of the drive carriers I can get
five of the six drives to spin up. Its now copying stuff to my Buffalo NAS
but as its 10Mbit LAN its not terribly fast. I think the NAS isn't very fast
either. It looks like zipping up the files and FTPing the ZIP files might be
the quickest way to go.

Dave

From: Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> 
Sent: 18 May 2018 22:31
To: 'Benjamin Huntsman' <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu>; 'General
Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: RE: Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390

I thought I had captioned that picture. It's the original RAID controller
which I am not using. If I plug it in it starts the disks in the RAID array
which takes ages, and steals the hard disk BIOS vector which I need for the
SCSI card that's running the system.

I didn't want to remove it fully as I need to label the cables feeding it.
One feeds the top drive bays, and the other the bottom so if I ever need to
put it back it I need to know which is which. 

If I get some free time I will have a go at starting the disks in it and
repairing the RAID array, and perhaps copy the disks that are installed.

Dave

From: Benjamin Huntsman <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu
<mailto:BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> > 
Sent: 18 May 2018 21:49
To: Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com <mailto:dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> >; General
Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org> >
Subject: Re: Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390

I gotta ask, what's the deal with the dangling card?  That cracked me up!

Thanks for posting some pics!

  _____  

From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> > on behalf of Dave Wade via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org> >
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2018 1:46 PM
To: 'Guy Sotomayor Jr'; 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Guy Sotomayor Jr <ggs at shiresoft.com <mailto:ggs at shiresoft.com> >
> Sent: 15 May 2018 21:39
> To: Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com <mailto:dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> >;
General Discussion: On-Topic
> and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
> Subject: Re: Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390
> 
> 
> 
> > On May 15, 2018, at 1:29 PM, Dave Wade via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org
<mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org> >
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > That's, in effect, what I did. Whilst there were Microchannel IDE
Controllers
> I have never seen one. There are no IDE interfaces on the "Planar" so
every
> thing must be on the MCA bus.
> > So I bought a BusLogic BT646 SCSI card on E-Bay. I also bought an
Adaptec
> card as a spare.  I think I struck lucky with the BT646. It is a simple
SCSI/2 card,
> no raid but it does have a BIOS with support for two bootable drives and a
> >4GB drive option.
> > OS/2 has drivers for it so it works out of the box. The OS/2 boot disks
find
> the drive and install the proper drivers.
> > To compensate for the slower "narrow" drives I bought a SCSI2SD card
that
> puts an SD card on the bus. OS/2 just sees it as a up two four drives
> depending on how I configure it. At present I have two 4gb drives. The
card
> in it is 32gb so I can add 2 x 12gb drives or 1 x 24gb or some other mix.
The CD
> ROM sites on the same bus. I haven't tried the tape drive yet..
> >
> 

Well I found an XGA2 card in the pile of bits so now I have 1024x768 display
resolution. I have swapped the CDROM for a SCSI DVD drive. 

I managed to boot MTS and there are a few pics here:-

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmc1pkB1 

 <https://flic.kr/s/aHsmc1pkB1> 

 <https://flic.kr/s/aHsmc1pkB1> P390

flic.kr

Explore this photo album by Dave G4UGM on Flickr!

next job is to tidy up and re-assemble the case..

Dave

> Some time ago I acquired a PCI P/390 card (along with the various LIC
files).  I
> went down the same path as you to build a P/390 system with OS/2 but I
> kept running into problems with OS/2 versions and supported hardware.
> 
> I finally gave up and acquired a PCI based RS/6000 that I'll install AIX
on and
> have an R/390.  ;-)  I haven't had the time yet to make any progress on
it.
> 
> But it's good to know that you've managed to do this if I decide to go
back
> and attempt the PC route again.
> 
> TTFN - Guy