#ZIP100 & CrossDOS
11 messages in this thread
Gayle,
Did I see that you have a ZIP drive? any clues on how to get the accursed thing
working? I have a couple of mountlists i saw posted here recently but they
don't seem to work, (either that or I'm implementing them wrongly..)
The furthest I've managed to get so fat is an icon appearing with ??? after the
name, I try and format it but it says "Cannot read cylinfder 2" but it will
format if I use "Quick format" …until it starts giving read/write errors and
gives up the ghost..
Can anyone give me a step by step guide to installing a Zip Drive?
Oh, I got it working on the Bridgeboard in about 2 mins and on Emplant in 5..
so much for autoconfig! <g>
Steve
Steve,
Yes, I have an Iomega ZIP drive. Since I have a GVP G-Force 030 board, I
chose to use the GVP utility FaaastPrep. It did an automatic format for me and
created a mountlist. I used CrossDOS Version 6 to mount another blank as
device PCC: for a diskette that would be compatible with IBM clones. Since you
can buy the blanks preformatted for either Macs or IBM clones, you don't need
to format them for those machines. You DO have to format the ones that you
want to use for Amiga disks. I believe I set the SCSI ID for 5 because my two
Quantum harddrives have 2 and 6. Use HDToolbox or FaaastPrep to read the SCSI
ID's first before installing the ZIP drive so you'll know how to set the SCSI
switch on the back. (You CANNOT use the parallel ZIP drive! The parallel port
for the Amiga is not enough like the IBM clone parallel port; I never
considered it feasible.)
On FaaastPrep I used the automatic installation. The Amiga disk has
ZIP{95MB} as its volume name; the IBM disk, ZIP-100 as its volume name. Be
sure to order blanks. Keep the disk that comes with the ZIP drive for its
utilities that can be used on the bridgeboard or other IBM clone (or Mac if you
got those).
Although that is not a blow-by-blow instruction, it was this past summer
when I set the ZIP up for use. Let us know what equipment you have and what
utility you wish to use and what happened exactly to cause you problems.
Here is a mountlist that works for me. 'Your mileage may vary.'
/* Mountfile Entry Created: 16-May-95 00:25:05
* for full CrossDOS Disk.
*
* Disk Size: 96.0 Meg
* Vendor and drive name: 005 IOMEGA ZIP 100 L.27
*/
/* Disk size parameters.*/
Surfaces = 1
BlocksPerTrack = 1
Lowcyl = 0
Highcyl = 196607
BufMemType = 1
Blocksize = 512
/* Device driver parameters.*/
Device = gvpscsi.device
Unit = 5
Flags = 0x00000000
/* File system parameters.*/
Mask = 0x00FFFFFE
Maxtransfer = 0x7FFFFFFF
Reserved = 0
Filesystem = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
Stacksize = 2000
Priority = 5
Bootpri = -20
Globvec = -1
Buffers = 5
Dostype = 0x4d534800
Mount = 1
#
Sincerely, 24-Oct-95 at 9:09p
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
Perfessor Fearless from the Rocket City!
Gayle,
Thanks very much for the advice and the file you sent.. They got me a bit
further down the road but I'm still no nearer having a working Zip drive
that I can trust.
A quick description of my system.. it's an A2000 with a GVP "combo" card
which has a 030 @40mhz on it and 16megs of fast Ram, plus it's the
controller for my 540meg Quantum HD. I also have Emplant and was hoping to
use the Zip drive on both the Amiga and Emplanted MAC by attaching it to
the Emplants SCSI port.. Although I got the MAC part working correctly I
couldn't get the Amiga to format the Zip drive this way.
Following your lead, I connected the Zip drive to the SCSI port on the GVP
card and used faaastprep to format the drive, this time I had more luck and
it low level formatted properly and dos formatted as you would expect, the
only difference to your set-up was that faaaastprep called the zip drive
"DH0A". All well and good so far.. an icon appears when a disk is inserted,
and goes away when removed, open the icon and I get an empty window with
"95 megs empty" reported..
Here's the problem..
I can copy small files to it, but should I try to copy anything large (ie
1Meg..) the Amigas HD spins continuously and the Zip drives light goes
out.. the system locks and I have to re-boot, when rebooted the Zip-drive
is corrupt and I have to re-format.
I tried giving the Zip drive more buffers, but this didn't help, (Although
I'm convinced it worked for longer before it crashed..)
Any ideas!? <g>
Steve
Steve,
I did save the mountlist that FaaastPrep V1.98 (Apr 22 1991) created for
me. This was before I installed CrossDOS 6. It appears that the regular
format utility on the system drawer will work. The low level format on the
FaaastPrep corrupted my second blank.
Anyway, after I formatted another blank with the FFS DC system, (I
formatted the first one with just FFS, no Directory Cache), I copied a 925991
byte lha file to it and tested it with lha t <file>. That test came out fine.
I have the following lines in my user-startup:
assign GFU: Work:GF030/Utilities
GFU:GvpCpuCtrl FASTROM MOVESSP
run >nil: GFU:GVPScsiCtrl -s
run >nil: Work:Util/memutil/enf/Enforcer |nil: quiet
lock sys: on
assign Pagesetter: Work2:Pagesetter
assign Ind: Work:Telecom/AP/Ind
assign ds_fsi: Work2:DistantSuns/afE:GLMAC
My Quantum drives are 50 MB (the original one that came on the Amiga
2000HD package on an A2091) and the 100 MB on the GVP G-Force 030 (25 MHZ MMU
on). The ZIP drive is slower than the Quantum; consequently, perhaps your
system is 'choking' the ZIP drive? CrossDOS may also be getting in the way if
it is Version 6. It's fine if CrossDOS can 'take over' and treat it as a
regular FAT system, but that loses the Amiga filesystem use. Were you running
anything else? I even turned off the Amiga screen blanker. Although I haven't
done extensive testing with large files, the transfers seem fine. If you want
to send me one that is giving you trouble, I'll try it.
At least you got it working on the other platforms!
Sincerely, 26-Oct-95 at 12:06a
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
Perfessor Fearless from the Rocket City!
> Did I see that you have a ZIP drive? any clues on how to get the accursed
thing working? <
Steve, I saw this message you posted to Gayle Fariless, but thought I'd jump
in here too. I have a Zip drive hooked upto my 3000. Which Amiga are you
trying to hook it up to? You have to run HDToolbox and do a low level format
on the disks before you can use them. Until then, the Amiga, at least mine
anyway, does not recoginze the disk. After lowlevel formatting, and rebooting,
you can do a regular Amiga DOS format on the disk. Things should work fine
then. If you have any other problems, let me know.
Jim
Hi Jim,
Did you see my 2nd message to Gayle? ..I have the drive low level and DOS
formatted, but if I try and copy anything of any useful size to it everything
locks up.. not good.
My amiga is an A2000 with 030 and 16 megs of fast ram via GVP combo card..
I want to use the ZIp via Emplant SCSI so I can use it on Amiga and Mac, but
will settle for GVP SCSI if need be..
Steve
> Did you see my 2nd message to Gayle? ..I have the drive low level and DOS
formatted, but if I try and copy anything of any useful size to it everything
locks up.. not good. <
Steve, yes I saw it, and I noticed that Gayle replied back to you. There
seems to be some good additional information there. Good luck in getting that
Zip drive working.
Jim
Hi James,
Thanks for your message, I'm still having mega problems with the accursed ZIP
drive, so many that I've put it back in it's box and retired it to the
cupboard. Today I ordered the Amiga ZIP software that Hisoft are shipping with
all the "Amiga ready" ZIP drives they sell, (nice of them to sell me a copy as
I got the Zip elsewhere I say..) if that doesn't work you'll find it in the
classifieds at a good price… <g>
Steve
> Today I ordered the Amiga ZIP software that Hisoft are shipping with all the
"Amiga ready" ZIP drives they sell, <
Steve, let me know what software comes with the Amiga ZIP package. I never
heard that anyone had Amiga specific Zip drive software out yet.
Jim
Jim,
Hisoft have written their own software to accompany the Zip, they mentioned it
in -tiny- letters in their ad, so I called and begged a direct purchase of it..
the lady said it will be on sale seperately in 2 weeks at 15 UK pounds.
I`ll let you know how good it is when I get it..
Steve.
> I`ll let you know how good it is when I get it.. <
Steve, I'll look forward to that! Thanks.
Jim