OK I agree, I did replace 2 caps near it. and I guess each cap directly connected to a pin on the IC. So would logical next steps be? 1) desolder IC 2) check traces under it 3) solder IC back on.

Thanks Waka for your reply. Can you say which IC it is that controls the spindle motor?

I was already thinking in that direction. Combined with a USB-stick to floppy adapter piece to at least get the machine running again. I do believe it's rather OK apart from the diskette drive and likely the HDD but there's no way now for me to make use of it.

matze79 wrote on 2022-12-07, 20:41: Did you use USB Floppy ? Yes I did.

OK this is funny :). Normally the diskette drive's LED stops blinking after a few seconds, then I get the 161/162 error with the NOT OK symbol we probably all know all too well. But ... If I spin the diskette drive manually, it keeps trying to read the diskette much much longer, I can even feel the …

I used this reference disk: https://www.ardent-tool.com/disks/rf5565a.zip . There's an img file inside, and as said before, I put the contents of the .img file byte by byte on the floppy disk (with dd)

Did you generate the reference disk with ibm tools ? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think a diskette drive can know if there is a bootable reference disk in it if it did not spin at all. I also checked the caps I replaced, they all make proper contact to the components ~next to them (electrically …

Maybe a bit more diagnostic information. On the bottom of the diskette drive, at the middle front, there's a brown flex cable with 3 conductors that goes to a device (magnetic head?) that sits very closely to the circle that spins. When I boot the computer, I measure 2V on the 2 outer conductors. It …

No I did not create them with IBM tools. I downloaded an img file and 'dd'-d the .img file to the diskette drive device file (as in dd if=~/Downloads/recuedisk.img /dev/fdd . Doing so it did it bit by bit. I'm not 100% sure how diskettes work to boot from but if there would have been a MBR, it …

Hi, I've acquired an IBM PS/2 55SX which gives error 161/162. I replaced the dallas chip, still does the errors. Since it wouldn't boot from a diskette, I figured it needed recapping. I did that but still no luck. It doesn't boot from the reference diskette. Just to be sure: with the reference …