T23 and Hardware Maintenance Disk 1.62

[lilserenity]

Hiya,

I recently acquired a T23, which all looks to be good except one thing, I noticed after getting it the serial number and machine number sticker was missing.

No problem - BIOS has it.

The two fields are blank?! Now this makes me suspicious of the machine's origins?

Why would these be blank and nothing on the base unit? I read in the T23 HMM that you need the Hardware Maintenance Disk 1.62 to restore the serial number from the EEPROM.

I have 1.60 which is for the 600/770 series/era of machines but not 1.62. I'm curious as to why this is the case, maybe the system board was replaced?

Any help would be appreciated,
Vicky

[lilserenity]

Also should someone have a copy of v1.62... No I'm not doing something underhand here, I'm just curious why this machine has no serial number.

[lilserenity]

I love soliloquys. (Excuse my spelling if it's gone awry there)

Update. I found v1.69 and with turning off quick boot managed to 'read' the info from EEPROM.

It's blank.

Also with option 3 being delete info, I'm wondering why on earth the unit should have no serial number.

Are these signs of a stolen machine?

[n3il]

The Hardware Maintenance Disk allows you to reset the serial number or delete it - if it aint showing up in the BIOS then it aint in the EEPROM (there is nothing there to read in other words.) It is not restoring the machine details FROM the EEPROM, rather restoring them TO the EEPROM. In essence you could put whatever serial number you fancy onto the machine using that diskette.

As for WHY.... if the machine had its mobo replaced and whoever (IBM tech or otherwise) didn't use the diskette to rewrite the machine's info onto the new mobo; then that would explain it. New mobos have a "blank space" in the serial number field.

Unfortunately if you have no indication of the correct serial number then you can't tell the warranty of the machine - which (I agree with you) is slightly suspicious. As for if it is stolen or not - no way of knowing without serial number (or if previous owner security marked it...)

Sorry I can't be more help...