Floppy drives on PS/2 machines are known to get have lubricant gummed up with time where screw stepper with it's bearing at other end is.

Did the floppy make seeking noise as it should during the POST? You can tell it is not working right if gummed up.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-05-18, 22:39:

Floppy drives on PS/2 machines are known to get have lubricant gummed up with time where screw stepper with it's bearing at other end is.

Did the floppy make seeking noise as it should during the POST? You can tell it is not working right if gummed up.

Cheers,

I have no other point of reference, this floppy drive is older than the next oldest working drive I have by about 5 years. I don't know what a PS/2 should sound like. I took a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16q-uGs39AI

Does that floppy drive sound bad to you? This machine supposedly has sat in an attic, plugged into AC, for the last 25 years. The lady said her son had it setup for her to play games after he moved out and she stopped using it circa 2001. I assume accordingly it worked last time she used it, and I assume it had some form of OS on it as well. Had no floppy in it when I got it.

Do you know what a floppy drive sounded like on another computer before during the POST boot up before booting OS?

The configuration and setup disk has to be correct one for your model and prepared by own program that you downloaded and executed on the DOS computer or XP with usb floppy drive or on another XP PC with floppy drive? SP file with exe will format and copy the data onto 1.44 floppy to create the setup disk.

Not the ones created from images.

Cheers,

bad drive or bad disk, if it was a seek failure you'd get a 601 so it's data related

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-05-19, 01:37:

bad drive or bad disk, if it was a seek failure you'd get a 601 so it's data related

I'm going to throw it on eBay as untested. It can be someone elses problem..... The cheapest PS/2 floppy drive on eBay is $85 f*cking dollars, I don't want to know how much a EIDE hard disk is and the only sound card for MCA listed currently is THREE THOUSAND dollars.

EVERY 486 or older machine I get is non-functional. 6 for 6 on failure rate. I'm officially sticking to Socket 7 or higher machines. Granted this PS/2 I could fix if it weren't for all the proprietary crap this thing uses. Proprietary form factor drives, proprietary connectors, proprietary local bus tech, the list goes on.

I made the floppy using Floppy Image and a .img file which writes the entire disk regardless of how much of it is actual data so I know the disk isn't bad. This was a waste of $40.........

No no. Download the reference disk setup, unzip it then execute the .exe on a working DOS or XP PC with floppy drive and good 1.44MB floppy disk. It will create one.
I had and still have PS/2 model 70 too. 55SX was the most bought ever for workers. Everywhere.

I think you are very close, just matter of doing right, not broken yet.

http://www.ibmfiles.com/ps2disketteimages.htm

http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_55sx/

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-05-19, 02:00:

No no. Download the reference disk setup, unzip it then execute the .exe on a working DOS or XP PC with floppy drive and good […]
Show full quote

No no. Download the reference disk setup, unzip it then execute the .exe on a working DOS or XP PC with floppy drive and good 1.44MB floppy disk. It will create one.
I had and still have PS/2 model 70 too. 55SX was the most bought ever for workers. Everywhere.

I think you are very close, just matter of doing right, not broken yet.

http://www.ibmfiles.com/ps2disketteimages.htm

http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_55sx/

Cheers,

Nope, still didn't work. Hard disk just makes clicking noises, and the floppy just sits reading for infinity while the _ blinks after the 163 code.

I'm for sure going to get rid of it before I give into the impulse to destroy it, as it looks like both the hard drive and floppy are dead. Really if it werent such a clean, white (almost no yellowing) unit I probably would throw it into a creek.

The PS/2 floppies are also knows for dried out electrolytic caps.
There are manuals online how to use a standard 34 pin floppy on the 26 pin PS/2 header.
For the MCA sound boards, there is an ongoing project for Adlib clones.
Even for PS/2 enthusiasts the MCA sound boards are rare and allways expensive.
Dallas chip mod is easy to do if you own a Dremel or something similar.
Had to do it for about 5 times before giving away a batch of my 55sx a few years ago.

Oh, well. I was trying to help.

I'd would repair these floppy drive too.. Even on a Compaq as well.

Cheers,

Hello,

Recently I've got the same problem with my PS/2 mod 55sx, it cannot boot from floppy. I've realized that original floppy drive moves heads to center during the POST and leave them at this position. I can rotate this worm gear by hand to move heads back, but at next start drive moves them to the center again. Then computer boots from hard drive.
What do you think, is there way to fix it or connect standard 3.5" floppy to this model? I've tried to connect standard floppy there, but no success... Computer detect floppy, seek them, but cannot boot from it anyway and booting from hard drive. So when I try to access floppy disk from OS it reports not ready error. I've tried three floppy drives with the same result, does it mean that all these theree drives are broken?
If somebody knows how to connect standard floppy to model 55sx it will be very helpful.
And yes, my original drive is Mitsubishi and I've found only two SMD electrolytic caps.
Thank you very much for any advice.

albr wrote on 2021-05-01, 04:28:

And yes, my original drive is Mitsubishi and I've found only two SMD electrolytic caps.

Probably not useful, but I've been trying to get an old Mitsubishi drive to work, which had 2 SMD electrolytics that had leaked over the board, and they were way out of spec. On mine, they smooth the power supply for the main motor and the stepper motor (the big cap) and the drive electronics (the small cap). They're both on the 5V line, but the drive electronics are separated by an inductor, I assume to try and filter out the electrical switching noise of the motors. If they've gone bad then that noise could cause various odd effects. On boot the drive heads should go to track 0 on the outer edge. The track zero switch on my Mitsubishi is optical, so it could be that noise on the power line might make the drive signal that the heads are at track 0.

Also, the switches for disk density and write-protect had stopped working properly. I've replaced the caps and cleaned the switches, and it's improved, but still not quite right. I think part of the analogue read circuitry may have been damaged when the caps failed.