Mac PreFormated Zip Jaz disks OK for Amiga?

[ckillerh3]

Mac PreFormated Zip Jaz disks OK for Amiga?
I can't get my Zip 250 or Jaz 1gig to work
even using HD tool box.  Just wondering
if the fact that I'm using Mac preformated
disks is the problem?

[Dr_Righteous]

Does it recognize the fact a disk has been inserted? Do you get an NDOS icon on the Workbench?

Amigas won't recognize Mac formats by default, you'll need CrossMac. Assuming you can see a ZIP disk at all, you can reformat it for DOS (FAT), since CrossDOS should already be installed and MacOS can read DOS (FAT) disks too.

Oh and of course you need to have the ZIP drivers installed on your miggy as well... Found easilly on Aminet.

[ckillerh3]

Hi - thanks for the note.  Yes it recognizes the disk but my system refuses to format it.  It gives me a very simple error message something like "I can't format this type of disk".  I don't have cross Mac loaded, and really just want to wipe the disk and format it with FFS standard Amiga format.  I wonder what the problem is?

I've got my mount list set OK and my Zip 100 seems fine.  My Zip 250 also works but the JAZ seems to be the fussy one.

Thanks !

Stephen

[Dr_Righteous]

Do you have JazTools installed? That might help. http://www.aminet.net/search.php?query=iomega

Might double check the disk isn't write protected using your Mac. That optical write protection is a bear sometimes.

[Piru]

Just a quick note: There are no such thing as "mac preformatted" disks. The "mac" means that the disk includes the mac software on it. The disk itself is VFAT, and works as-is in a PC, Mac and Amiga (with crossdos/fat95 + mountdos).

[ckillerh3]

Hi -

I thought that it did not matter if it said MAC or PC on the disk !  From a previous post I'll look at some of those JAZ tools on Aminet.  I thought that since there was a ZIP tools built into OS3.9 that it would kinda just work.  From the note it seems to me that there are a few drivers/loop holes I need to fix-up.  Having a good mountlist file is not enough?

I'll keep pecking away at this .  Thanks !

Stephen

[Dr_Righteous]

The formats are indeed different. I can't put a Mac formatted ZIP disk in my PC and have it read (without software intervention)... It'll assume the disk is unformatted and prompt to format. Thus the little lable on the disk that says "Mac Formatted." It's not just software, it's a different format.

Using a FAT (DOS/Windows) formated ZIP disk...
You should have a file in Devs:/DOSDrivers called ZIC containing:
FileSystem = CrossDOSFileSystem
Flags = 0
Surfaces = 1
BlocksPerTrack = 1
SectorsPerBlock = 1
SectorSize = 512
Mask = 0x7ffffffe
MaxTransfer = 0x100000
Reserved = 0
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 196607
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 0
StackSize = 2000
Priority = 10
GlobVec = -1
DosType = 0x4d534800

Icon Information should contain:
File Tab...
   Name: ZIC (Project)
   Version: ?
   Protection: Read, Write, Delete, Execute
   Icon Tab...
   Default Tool: C:Mount
   StackSize: 4094
   Priority: 0
   Start From: Workbench
   ToolTypes:
      Activate=1
      Device=(YOURscsi.device)
      Unit=(SCSI ID of ZIP drive)

There is another file called ZIP, but you don't really need it since you're going through CrossDOS, rather than formating with FFS.