I installed Linux with Mandrake 8.0 one month ago. I have a very weird problem with

my Iomega Zip100 drive : I can read it but not write it.



1°) My configuration : Dell Pentium Pro200n, 96MB, 2 removable HDs, used alternatively :

one (4GB) with Winsdows95, one (20GB) with Linux. Two parallel ports, parport0 with LP and

CDRW, parport1 with Zip100.



Except the HD, system under Linux and under Win95 is the same.



2°) All Zip100 tests are done with Zip100disks created under Win95. They work fine under

Win95. Parport1 has EPP running under Win and Linux.



3°) Under Linux, when I try to copy a file from a Zip100 disk to the HD, I must do it with

the "-r" or "-o noatime" option in the mount command like this for example :



mount -r /mnt/zip

cp /mnt/zip/readme.txt /tmp



If I mount without the "-r" option, the copy is well done, but at the end (30seconds after

the end), the two lights of the drive remain lighted and drive is locked (I cannot do

anything with it, neither cp, nor umount : I must reboot the system). I did many tests

and I understood that the problem certainly occurred when system wanted to write

the number of accesses. Then I did a test with "-o noatime", and another with "-r" option

in mount command. Well, since this time I could copy many files without problem from

my Zip100 disks.



4°) When I try to copy a file from the HD to the Zip100, copy seems to work, but after 30

seconds, I have the same problem than with read. But in this case, I didn't find so far

a solution : I must reboot, and the file I beleived it was copied has not been copied !!!



5°) If I try to format a Zip100 disk either with Iomega tool, or with fdisk, operations seem

to work fine until the system wants to write the FAT : then, always the same problem.



So I deduct that system is not able to write the FAT : why ? I don't have so far many

significant error messages (only when I do a dmesg, I can see several 10000 errors).



I am not experimented in Linux (only one month !) and I don't know in what direction

I must search. I don't understand why the system can read, why it apparently could write,

and why it couldn't write nor update the FAT, even for format it !!!



Any idea will be welcome ! Many thanks in advance :-)

How are you mounting the Zip drive?? I've never had any problems with mine! Also, what kernel are you using? You might want to read http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&threadid=4015 also

cheers

Jamie...

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. I can say that since one month I tried *absolutely* all the posiibilities. This is not my fstab nor mount commands which are the reason of my problem... Do you are using zip100 disks written in Windows ? Can you format them under Linux ?

Regards,

Hello again...

My kernel : 2.4.3-20mdk.
PPA version 2.

Regards,

Again me...

PPA version 2.07

Regards,

I used this site to get mine working.



http://www.linuxmall.com/resources/n...t1/format.html

If you want to mount a zip disk that has the standard format try this.

mkdir /mnt/zip

mount /dev/hdd4 -t auto /mnt/zip

Hi David,

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it : it doesn't work. But it can't work,
because my zip is on parallel port, so it is a "SCSI" drive,
and it can be seen by the system only as SDx
(S as SCSI, D as Disk, x is a for the first drive, or b for the second, or c etc.).
Anyway SDA works fine in read. It writes too, and formats also, but without effect,
because it is not able to write the FAT.
If you do a dmesg command, you will see as all your devices are known
from the system. Maybe that works on your system because your drive
is on IDE and not on parallel port ?

I see, somehow I overlooked that in the first post.

I think there is some info on that on the internet, maybe lookup external jazz drive, it is about the same thing.

I found this, maybe it will help


http://www.linux.com/howto/mini/ZIP-Drive-4.html


and this

http://www.iomega.com/software/linuxtools.html

http://forums.iomega.com/eshare/server?action=4

Thank you again ! I"ll try to find somebody who had a similar problem...