Big thanks to all the people for the tutorials/guides/... and
@hermesconrad for the HDD images !
Finally took some time to install an IDE2CF adapter in the PS2 TOOL I bought a looong time ago (it came with no HDDs).
The steps I followed:
1) copied the 1st HDD image (of the 1st TOOL) via command: sudo dd if=disc.img of=/dev/sdd bs=8M status=progress
to a
Sandisk 32GB Extreme compact flash card
2)
IDE to CF card config:
JP1: 1-2 (power via FDD cable)
JP2: 1-2 (5V)
JP3: 1-2 (Master)
IDE cable connected to the PCI586 card, floppy disk power cable connected to IDE2CF card.
View attachment 13754
3) booted the PS2 TOOL
got a message that the file system had inconsistencies.
ran fsck by:
a) providing the admin pwd: administ
(note: it expects a qwerty keyboard)
b) fsck /dev/hda1
typed "y" to fix whenever there was an error
4) rebooted the PS2 tool
shutdown via: shutdown -h now
5) ... and the errors were gone & I got a "devtool login:" startup screen
Still unsure how far I will modify the system (fans probably, psu maybe, cmos battery dead), and still a lot to clean & fix (broken plastic, disc tray stuck, memory card slots plastic partially broken, ...), but it's a huge step forward