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How To Get ZIP Drive Work In MS-DOS 6.22 And Windows 3.1 ?

M

MIRKOSOFT

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Central Europe, Slovakia
Hi!
I have parallel ZIP drive by Iomega - want to use transfer files from my PC to my 486.
In my PC I have SCSI ZIP drive - same model, only other interface, working. But on my 486 always when I try at least run Guest it finds letter for ZIP but always is not accessible - insert disk into or not valid...
How to configure ZIP drive?
Thank you for each help.
Miro
 
The 486 is connected to a parallel port Zip, correct? What color are the Zip drive lights? If both the green and amber lights are lit, the drive failed.

If your issue is not that, please describe what you are attempting in more detail. What drive letter does the Zip drive show up as? Do you have a last drive set? What other drivers are loaded? Other parallel port drives tend to conflict.
 
Hi here are my answers (for to be sure I tested it again - to write true answers):

The 486 is connected to a parallel port Zip, correct? = yes
What color are the Zip drive lights? = one green lit
If both the green and amber lights are lit, the drive failed = no

If your issue is not that, please describe what you are attempting in more detail.
What drive letter does the Zip drive show up as? = F
When switch to F = Win3.1 No disk/Insert, MS-DOS6.22 Not ready reading drive F(abort/retry/fail) - both diodes lit/after eject button ejects disk and green lit
Do you have a last drive set? = A-Z
What other drivers are loaded? = FDD (A), HDD (C, D, E)
Other parallel port drives tend to conflict = no one

Thank you for help.
Miro
 
I don't know about guest, but I've had a 486 (or maybe it's a 386; I don't recall) sitting in a corner of the room for over 20 years with an attached parallel port ZIP drive. My CONFIG.SYS is full of various drivers, but here's the stuff related to the Zip drive--and it works:

Code: 
DEVICEHIGH = C:\IOMEGA\ASPIPPM1.SYS FILE=NIBBLE.ILM SPEED=10
DEVICE = C:\IOMEGA\SCSICFG.EXE /V
DEVICEHIGH = C:\IOMEGA\SCSIDRVR.SYS
 
Right then. Everything looks like it should work correctly. I hate the Zip Drives lack of useful troubleshooting information. Sure, 99% of the time it installs easily but that other 1% results in a lot of blind fumbling.

Are you using the oddball dual format Tools disk? That won't permit the writing of files until the wrong (Mac) format is removed.

What is the date on the GUEST.EXE you are using? What about date on the drive?

Some versions of GUEST include a second parallel port sys file ASPIMM2.SYS which may correct for issues with certain parallel ports. The README should include instructions on how to adjust GUEST.INI to handle this.

It should make a clacking noise if the drive heads are dirty as it moves to the little cleaning pad repeatedly. So if you hear any odd noises or long delays, those might be clues.
 
So, after long time I tried IOMEGA Parallel ZIP drive.
I added lines in post above to CONFIG.SYS
It reports error not, but there are missing two items:
SCSICFG.EXE
SCSIDRVR.SYS
If I think about correctly first file sets up config and second is SCSI driver.
I tried to find parallel drivers first on my ZIP disk and found two interesant files:
ISACFG.COM and IODOSDRV.EXE

So, I added to CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICEHIGH= C:\IOMEGA\ASPIPPM1.SYS FILE=NIBBLE.ILM SPEED=10
DEVICE = C:\IOMEGA\ISACFG.COM /V
DEVICEHIGH = C:\IOMEGA\IODOSDRV.EXE

And it always reboots after starting IOMEGA info in CONFIG.SYS.
So, I did this:
DEVICEHIGH= C:\IOMEGA\ASPIPPM1.SYS FILE=NIBBLE.ILM SPEED=10
REM DEVICE = C:\IOMEGA\ISACFG.COM /V
DEVICEHIGH = C:\IOMEGA\IODOSDRV.EXE

Then it reports:
Iomega installed successfuly.

but then waits forever...
Where I did mistake?

Thank you for help.
Miro
 
I would suggest skipping the DEVICEHIGH until the drive starts working. It should work that way but it is an extra variable complicating matters.

Could you describe your 486 system? In some systems, the parallel port does not work as expected. Does the parallel port work for printing without the Zip drive attached?

I have attached a parallel port zip drive to multiple systems including 486s without problems. Do you have another 286 to Pentium system that can take the drive to confirm the drive works?
 
With CheckIt (or something equivalent) and a parallel loopback connector (which is easy to construct) you can verify every aspect of the parallel port.
 
Parallel port works ok 'cause I'm using PC harddisk also as storage device for my Commodore 128 - parallel connection.
I try to disable DEVICEHIGH this evening and will report.
Miro
 
MIRKOSOFT said:
Parallel port works ok 'cause I'm using PC harddisk also as storage device for my Commodore 128 - parallel connection.
I try to disable DEVICEHIGH this evening and will report.
Miro
Click to expand...

Do you have the driver for the Commodore 128 connection loaded at the same time you are trying to access the Zip drive? Zip drives are very bad at sharing the parallel port often not working if some other driver was looking at the parallel port.
 
Driver is in separate program 64HDD which must run while I want access devices in PC - like HDD, CD, printer, RTC, mouse... When is program closed, all is not working on this side.
ZIP is also inaccessible by 64HDD, so until will ZIP drive working for MSD and Win31, 64HDD cannot access it too.
Miro
 
As first:
I changed in CONFIG.SYS this:
DEVICEHIGH= C:\IOMEGA\ASPIPPM1.SYS FILE=NIBBLE.ILM SPEED=10
REM DEVICE = C:\IOMEGA\ISACFG.COM /V
REM DEVICEHIGH = C:\IOMEGA\IODOSDRV.EXE
reports installed successfuly, but drive not available.
I started GUEST.EXE - drive letter found, even switch to that letter no problem - problem is read/write.

My system is Compaq Presario 460, i80486SX, VGA Trident 9000, 4MB RAM, 6GB HDD. iomega ZIP100 parallel.
I have no other system to compare, I own one MacSE with SCSI ZIP100 drive (no problem) and my PC has also SCSI ZIP100 drive.
Parallel port looks working perfectly 'cause I'm using its HDD/FDD with my Commodore 128 system as storage device.
But suggested Check It reported error, look at attached files (I'm sorry for quality but my capture card supports not DOS 640x449 - what is it a resolution? So I created screenshot by SVHS).

Miro
 

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MIRKSOFT,
Do you have Guest.exe in C:\IOMEGA\? If you do, you can just add a line in your autoexec.bat that is "call guest.bat"
and have guest.bat contain:

c:\iomega\guest.exe E:

Assuming you want the zip drive to be E:. Then it should work without installing any drivers. I've done it this way for years and never
did install the drivers. That at least will tell you the hardware and the ZIP Platter are good.

Another thing you can do is download a Linux ISO and burn the bootable CDR/DVD. By booting the Linux Distro you can try the Zip drive as it is
supported and recognized on boot. I've used a Linux Distro to access the 100 Meg Zip Packs. It should work on the larger ZIP Packs also.


Larry


View attachment GUESTHLP.TXT View attachment README.TXT
 
Last edited:
Failure in the loopback test strongly suggests failure in the parallel port or connections leading to it or a driver interfering with operation.

The only thing I can think to try would be to install a parallel port card and seeing if different card works better. You may be able to use a parallel port card from the PC if you don't have access to a spare.
 
Okay, I've got a parallel port Zip on one of my old machines here. If you run TASPI after the driver is loaded, you'll see something like this:
Code: 
		TASPI - Inventory ASPI-addressable SCSI Devices
			Copyright 1995-1999, Sydex, Inc.
			Version 1.08, October 10, 1999


There are 1 SCSI adapter(s) on this system.
For adapter 0:
  Host Target ID:	255
  SCSI Manager ID:	 Iomega ASPI V3.0
  Adapter ID:		Iomega  Fast-PPA

Requesting type of (0, 0)
Requesting type of (0, 1)
Requesting type of (0, 2)
Requesting type of (0, 3)
Requesting type of (0, 4)
Requesting type of (0, 5)
Requesting type of (0, 6)
    Device (0, 6) is type 0 (Disk Drive)
    Vendor ID:		IOMEGA  
    Product ID:		ZIP 100         
    Revision:		D.09
    Serial Number:	03/11/96
    Copyright info:	(c) Copyright IOMEGA 1995                       

    The medium is removable

    This drive did not return geometry information.
    This drive did not return capacity information (4).
Requesting type of (0, 7)
Requesting type of (0, 8)
Requesting type of (0, 9)
Requesting type of (0, 10)
Requesting type of (0, 11)
Requesting type of (0, 12)
Requesting type of (0, 13)
Requesting type of (0, 14)
Requesting type of (0, 15)

This shows that the parallel port works and the software can identify the drive correctly.

You can find TASPI.EXE in this ZIP archive:
 

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