[Solved] Iomega ZIP 100 IDE

[Neil Waldhauer]

Look at the LVM /QUERY output I posted above, disk [ D2 ]

I have a IDE ZIP 250 drive connected via IDE. LVM sees it but won't use it.

DaniS506.ADD sees the drive.

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R1.08.15     /!BIOS
            Daniela's Bus Master IDE Driver for OS/2 Version 1.08.15
Controller:0  Port:01F0 IRQ:0E  Status:OK BusMaster Scatter/Gather
  Intel ICH2 PATA host (8086:244B rev:12) on PCI 0:31.1#0
 Unit:0 Status:OK SMS:16 LBA BusMaster UltraDMA5/PIO4 BPB
  Model:ST3250820ACE                            3.ACD   
   OS2:log   phys   BPB/BIOS   IDE:log   phys     Total Sectors
  C  30401  65535                65535  16383   Avail  488397168
  H    255     16        255        16     16   OS2    488392065
  S     63     63         63        63     63   % Used     99.99
 Unit:1 Status:OK ATAPI BusMaster UltraDMA2/PIO3
  Model:IOMEGA  ZIP 250       ATAPI             41.S   
Controller:1  Port:0170 IRQ:0F  Status:OK
  Intel ICH2 PATA host (8086:244B rev:12) on PCI 0:31.1#1
 Unit:0 Status:OK ATAPI PIO4
  Model:SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-308B                T100   




[Lars]

If the ZIP disk shows up in minilvm (and that seems to be the case) and if a disk is actually inserted, you should be able to create a volume on it. Once that is done, you can leave minilvm and do LVM /rediscoverprm and it should give you a drive letter (maybe only on next boot, can't remember). You should then be able to format the volume.
At least that is how it worked with my parallel port attached ZIP served by PPAOS2.ADD.

[Neil Waldhauer]

I would think so, but LVM says the drive is inaccessible, and MiniLVM seems to agree. It shows the little cloud and does not give the option. I think the actual zip disk is formatted HPFS.

Back in the day, DaniS506.ADD didn't need any parameters to access a Zip disk. I wonder what the !BIOS flag does?

[Igor]

Hi all,

I checked and in my case 3 empty disks are blanks for USB. If you remove from config.sys сorresponding lines, then these blanks disappear from the system.
However, I never got access to the ZIP drive. And it is not visible in lvm. Although Danis506/danisflt recognizes it.

[Dave Yeo]

I would think so, but LVM says the drive is inaccessible, and MiniLVM seems to agree. It shows the little cloud and does not give the option. I think the actual zip disk is formatted HPFS.

Back in the day, DaniS506.ADD didn't need any parameters to access a Zip disk. I wonder what the !BIOS flag does?

From the documentation,

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     /!BIOS                                                 (call BIOS
        Disable all BIOS Int13 calls                           if required)

Could always test without it.
I also see under Unit options,

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     /!RMV                                                  (device default)
        (not) removable media drive
So perhaps need /RMV for the zip unit?

[Lars]

Has anyone of you ever tried to access the drive with DFSEE?
DFSEE will be able to access the drive even if the OS does not assign a drive letter.
I am led to believe that you need to add LVM info to the volume(s) as LVM did not exist 20 some years ago.
Once that is done, the drive (or rather, the volumes) should show up with drive letter(s).
A brutal way to start from scratch is to have DFSEE wipe the first 63 sectors (or more) with zeros but of course that will lead to complete loss of data on that ZIP disk.

[Neil Waldhauer]

I tried DFSee, but DFSee does not see the drive at all. LVM can see the drive, but no operation actually works. I tried renaming the drive, and it says it worked, but when I open it again in LVM, the original lack of disk name appears.

MiniLVM shows an extra unavailable drive with the right size, but no operation is allowed.

I found a USB zip drive and hoked it to an ArcaOS 5.1 beta system. Everything seems to work. I can verify that my zip disks are working. I used this system to assign a drive letter to the disk.

Back on the IDE Zip drive system, the disk with LVM information does not appear. Adding a drive letter does not seem to help.

[Olafur Gunnlaugsson]

I tried DFSee, but DFSee does not see the drive at all. LVM can see the drive, but no operation actually works. I tried renaming the drive, and it says it worked, but when I open it again in LVM, the original lack of disk name appears.

MiniLVM shows an extra unavailable drive with the right size, but no operation is allowed.

I found a USB zip drive and hoked it to an ArcaOS 5.1 beta system. Everything seems to work. I can verify that my zip disks are working. I used this system to assign a drive letter to the disk.

Back on the IDE Zip drive system, the disk with LVM information does not appear. Adding a drive letter does not seem to help.

Wasn't there a kink with the IDE ZIP drives? Did they not show some strange behaviour if they were set up as busmasters, especially with some chipsets? It's been 25 years, but I gave up on IDE ZIP's altogether for some such reason and only used SCSI versions.

I can vaguely recall setting it up for friends a few years later that the most successful setup was having them as a slave on IDE channel 2, with the caveat that most MB's post 2005 only have one IDE channel ...

[Igor]

I understood the reason and solved the problem of unstable IOMEGA ZIP 100.
It's all about an unsuccessful design. Magnetic powder flies from the disk to the printed circuit board and forms random connections.
In my case, it helped to remove dust from the printed circuit board of the device.
Unfortunately, I admit that in some cases, random compounds can cause damage to electronic components or the logic of the drive and physical damage of disks.