Iomega ZIP Drive

[luvtofish]

I recently bought two ZIP drives with the idea of transferring files between my PC and Amiga500+ running WB2.1 with CrossDOS. Well, right now they work great on each respective machine, but I'm having a devil of a time getting the Amiga to recognize the FAT formatted ZIP disk from the PC.

I've downloaded and installed the ZipMount Devices from Aminet...These include ZP0C, ZP0, etc. and placed them in the /devs/DOSDrivers folder. But alas, the best I can see on the Amiga desktop is an icon with ZP0C:NDOS which means it won't open. If I attempt to format the drive with this icon, I end up with an error that states "Disk is not Validated"...

Any idea why I'm not able to get my Amiga to recognize PC formatted ZIP disks?

I quite easily get the Amiga to recognize a ZIP Disk formatted with the Amiga FFS. Works great!

The PC can read the PC formatted zip disks just fine! The PC Zip drive is a USB 250MB and the Amiga ZIP Drive is a SCSI 250MB. (however, right now it only seems to accept the 100MB disks and rejects my 250MB disks as soon as I pop them in, but that's another issue).

Thanks

[bloodline]

Why not format the FAT Zip disk using the Amiga?

[Iggy]

Man, I've got Zip150s I can't give away (USB flash drives are easier/simpler to use).
Anyone that wants one, just pay the postage and its yours.

[luvtofish]

I get an error when I attempt to FAT format them on the AMIGA...."Disk is not Validated. I can format them to FFS alll day long on the Amiga...weird I say!

I'm at the point of thinking I'm not getting a true FAT16 filesystem on the ZIP Disk after I format it on my Win7 PC..

[bloodline]

I get an error when I attempt to FAT format them on the AMIGA...."Disk is not Validated. I can format them to FFS alll day long on the Amiga...weird I say!

I'm at the point of thinking I'm not getting a true FAT16 filesystem on the ZIP Disk after I format it on my Win7 PC..

Then there is the problem

Ok, you need to get the dos driver working... It's been too long for me to remember the specifics of this

[lost_loven]

I did that, but reverse, i formatted the zip to ffs on the amiga and on the pc use winuae to transfer files. no hassle. To bad the drive caught the click of death

lost

[Ami_GFX]

The combination of MountDos12.lha and fat95.lha is supposed to work and make fat 32 formatted disks recognizable by the Amiga. I've downloaded these from Aminet but haven't tried it yet. I've got a chain of one Zip and one Jaz drive connected to each of my Amigas. Both work great with Amiga formatted disks.

[amiga999]

I recently got a scsi zip 100 and scsi zip 250 working on my a500 with an a590 hard drive scsi port.

I downloaded the fat95.lha package and installed it by copying the file "fat95" from fat95/L into the L: directory.

I was baffled by the mountlist part and was concerned that I had to have the cylinders and geometry correct.  That doesn't seem to be necessary as LowCyl and HighCyl are ignored.

from the readme.too file in the fat95/english directory:

a) Automatic partition search:

    LowCyl = 0    /* "Auto search ON" */

    BlockSize = 512    /* fat95 does not need this here, */
    HighCyl = 1    /* but the Mount command likes to see them ;^) */
    BlocksPerTrack = 1
    Surfaces = 1

    DosType = 0x46415400    /* floppies only. Or else... */
    DosType = 0x46415401    /* first usable partition. Works almost always. */
    DosType = 0x46415402    /* second "primary" Partition. Seldomly. */
    DosType = 0x46415405    /* first "logical drive". */
    DosType = 0x46415406    /* second "logical drive", etc. */


My mountlist file which I've named ZIP0MOUNTLIST and put in the DEVS: directory.


ZIP0:
FileSystem    = l:fat95
Device        = scsi.device
Unit        = 5
Flags        = 0
LowCyl        = 0
HighCyl        = 0
Surfaces    = 1
BlocksPerTrack    = 1
BlockSize    = 512
Buffers        = 100
BufMemType    = 1
BootPri        = 0
Stacksize    = 4096
Priority    = 5
GlobVec        = -1
DosType        = 0x46415401
#

I mount the zip drive with "mount zip0: from devs:zip0mountlist"

I can copy files to and from the zip drive with no problems so far.  The same zip0mountlist works for both my zip100 and zip250 drives on scsi id 5.  Since the a590 internal hard drive is on scsi id 6, and external scsi zips can only have scsi id 5 or scsi id 6, I can't have both the zip100 and zip250 hooked up at the same time.

I also copied the "dd" command from the fat95.lha c directory and it only seems to work under amigados 2.0.  Works great to image my 40mb scsi quantum to a zip disk.  "dd scsi.device 6 zip0:a590image 0 82029" does a complete image of my quantum p40s.  (If I don't specify the end sector 82029, it will truncate the image since dd reads it 64 sectors at a time.  If it can't get 64 sectors it doesn't handle that very well.  When it gets less than 64 sectors dd tells you how many sectors it was able to read but doesn't write them out.)  

WARNING: If you use dd, be careful as you can erase your hard disk with the wrong parameters... they don't call dd "disk destroyer" for nothing.

from the fat95/english/readme.too file:

DiskDump
========

An old but useful UNIX bicycle, now brand new re-invented for Amiga (not just
for fat95). Copies a sequence of disk blocks into a file:

    dd .device





The fat95 driver seems to work under 1.3 and 2.0.

To see how much disk space you have on the zip disk use "info zip0:"
 
To change the zip disk use "diskchange zip0:"

I am using zip disks that are PC formatted.

[Tenacious]

I get an error when I attempt to FAT format them on the AMIGA...."Disk is not Validated. I can format them to FFS alll day long on the Amiga...weird I say!

I'm at the point of thinking I'm not getting a true FAT16 filesystem on the ZIP Disk after I format it on my Win7 PC..

You have CrossDOSfilesystem in your L: directory?

Is DosType the same?

If you format the Zip disks on a PC, they aren't recognized?  Zip 100MB or 250MB?  Brand new factory formatted disk?

I run OS3.9 and this is my mountlist (or rather DosDriver file) for a 100MB zip disk called ZPC:

Filesystwem          = L:CrossDOSfilesystem
Flags                    = 0
Surfaces               = 2
BlocksPerTrack      = 64
SectorSize            = 512
Mask                    = 0x7ffffffe
MaxTransfer          = 0x0ffffffe
Reserved              = 1
Interleave             = 0
LowCyl                 = 0
HighCyl                = 1535
Buffers                 = 50
BufMemType         = 0
StasckSize            = 2000
Priority                 = 10
GlobVec                = -1
DosType               = 0x4d534800

The SCSI device driver, unit #, etc are specified in the icon's Tool Types.

I use factory PC formatted zip disks interchangeably between Amiga, PCs, and Macs.  Very convenient.  

[danbeaver]

Tenacious is right (and thank you for posting your mountlist).

Try it with CrossDos (that is why it is there)

[motrucker]

OR, go to Syquest drives. I still use a Syquest EZ 135 SCSI with my A2000, with CrossDOS. Way better than ZIP drives :biglaugh: .

[scuzzb494]

You don't say, I don't think, how the SCSI ZIP is connected. However, I am assuming you have the CrossDOS in L and the ZP0: ( say ) in Devs and you have used a text editor to edit the tool/icon for the ZP0: (or ZIP for the PC disk ) for the correct file system ie CrossDOS and set the unit number and SCSI device name. When you put the disk in the Amiga will try to mount the drive as an Amiga drive or a PC drive so you may have two mounted ZIP icons in Devs: , one say ZP0 for PC and one ZP1 for Amiga. You can call em what you like given that is the mount list the Amiga reads. Bit like DF1, DF2, DF3, CD0 etc etc. So interogate the tool/icon with an editor ( I use CED) and edit to suit the SCSI device, Unit number which if I recall for a ZIP drive is always 4 and then change the L to the CrossDOS file system.

PS if you lable your ZIPS as a hard drive like IHD0 then you have to lable every disk the same if you want to mount as a kinda hard drive. I never could get the 250MB ones working.

[Tenacious]

Tenacious is right (and thank you for posting your mountlist).

Try it with CrossDos (that is why it is there)

I wasn't trying to contradict Amiga999.  He was simply a few seconds faster at posting his response than I was.  

[AmigaBruno]

Man, I've got Zip150s I can't give away (USB flash drives are easier/simpler to use).
Anyone that wants one, just pay the postage and its yours.

I've just  bought an A500 Plus. How could I use a USB flash drive on it? Perhaps I should consider one of your Zip150 drives. How much is the postage?

[AmigaBruno]

OR, go to Syquest drives. I still use a Syquest EZ 135 SCSI with my A2000, with CrossDOS. Way better than ZIP drives :biglaugh: .

How did you connect this drive?