IBM PS/1 repair help.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I recently got an IBM PS/1 for free from a friend. It has PC Dos 4.0 which is rare and I actually really like the OS so far. If I could get a sound blaster for it then it would be a good Dos gaming PC, the only problem is that the A drive is not working. No matter what disk I put in it it says "unformatted or bad disk". I know that this line if IBM PCs are fairly hard to upgrade and are fairly proprietary for hardware and what not. It does have the expansion on the bottom of the unit with included B drive. Is there a way to replace the A drive easily or is it specifically built for this PC? Can it be repaired? Can a CD rom drive be used with this PC?

Thanks in advance.

[Kitsune Sniper]

If it's a regular 3.5" floppy, you can replace it with another one. The interface has been standard for many years.

[vintagegamecrazy]

It's standard as far as I know but PS/1 is known for being hard to upgrade or swap parts for. I'm going to see is a standard drive will fit in the slot.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Ah... my mistake. I thought you said PS/2.

Crap, I'll just let someone else with more experience than me see if they can help. Sorry.

[tom]

If your PS/1 has an ISA connection, you can get a CD Rom drive for it, but since you're already eying up a soundcard, you obviously have ISA.
I used to own a internal Mitsumi 2-speed CD Rom I used on my HP 386, it just about ran Return to Zork on CD. The drive didn't fit into the PC (no 51/4" slot), so I taped it to my desk, and broke through the back of the PC to connect the cable to the ISA CD ROM card. Great fun

[blue lander]

I thought the PS/1 used Microchannels. I used to have a PS/1, I loved how quick it booted up.

[tom]

Just reading about microchannels in a Thinkpad book, Wiki says PS/2s only though.

[Dave Farquhar]

PS/1s were ISA, when they were expandable at all. The PS/1 line lasted about 7 years and had a lot of different models, ranging from 286 (I think) to the 486 or early Pentium era. I'm fairly confident that it's a 386 or better, it shouldn't be a problem finding a Soundblaster to put in it. The early models that stacked together like Legos could be dicier.

Every PS/1 I ever saw had a standard 34-pin floppy drive in it. So you should be able to drop in a 3.5" floppy from any run-of-the-mill PC and it would work fine.

[gravitone]

If it's some custom drive thats hard to replace (some of them had weird fronts/covers/buttons) you can probably revive the old drive. Chances are that the drivebelt has dried out and disintegrated. An easy $1.50 fix.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Well I got around to taking apart my PS/1 and the drive is proprietary for sure. It is powered by the ribbon cable and has no separate power wires. It also doesn't have a face plate on it. Every other A drive that I own will not work as even taking off the face plate makes the eject button fall off.

How would I go about repairing mine? I saw some replacements on Ebay but they were like $40 and I don't want to spend the cash if I don't have to.

Thanks