I have recently (January 1998) added an Iomega External SCSI ZIP 100
drive to my system, and I was surprised at just how simple it was.
So, I thought that I would describe the procedure for the benefit of
anyone else who might be thinking of doing the same.
The more you know, the better off you are, so I suggest downloading
2 documents, both of which have good background information.
The first is "AmigaZipFAQ12.lha", and is available from Aminet in the
"docs/help" directory. Chock full of detailed information.
The second is an excellent message uploaded to comp.sys.amiga.misc,
which anyone should be able to get from Deja News. Part of the header
follows:
From: rmacewen1@aol.com (RMacEwen1)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: RYANS ZIP TIPS! THE LATEST ZIP INSTALL INFO
Date: 30 Jul 1997 15:56:28 GMT
Lines: 223
This has some good general information, especially if you will be using
the ZIP drive to read IBM compatible or Macintosh formatted disks.
The relevent parts of my system are:
A1200
Blizzard 1230-IV accelerator
Blizzard 1230-IV SCSI Module
The ZIP drive was my only SCSI unit, and I intend to use only Amiga
software, so I require only Amiga formatted ZIP disks.
Adding the SCSI Module to the previously installed Blizzard 1230-IV
accelerator took only minutes, and was accomplished through the trap
door, without having to open the A1200's case. The trap door even
went back on, but it does bulge a bit.
If your system is the same as mine, you should be able to just follow
the instructions below. If your system is different, some modifications
may have to be made, but the information may still be useful.
The ZIP drive comes with:
The drive
A power supply
A SCSI cable (25 pin male connections on both ends)
1 ZIP disk, pre-loaded with IBM compatible software
You will no doubt want to purchase some blank ZIP disks.
OK, here are the easy steps.
1. On the back of the ZIP drive, there are two sliding switches.
One is to select either SCSI unit number 5, or 6. The other is
to select SCSI termination ON, or OFF. If this is your only
SCSI device, 5 and ON is good.
2. Turn off the computer. Connect one end of the SCSI cable to the
computer, and the other to the ZIP drive.
3. Power up the ZIP drive, and turn on the computer.
4. There is a program called "SCSIConfig" included on a disk that is
supplied with the Blizzard SCSI Module. You can copy that to your
C: directory.
That is all that was required for installation. I was surprised to
find out that there were no Mountlists, xxx.device files, or anything
else that had to be copied to DEVS:.
The only thing left now is to prepare a ZIP disk for formatting,
and then actually format it.
To prepare the ZIP disk:
At this point, I ran HDToolBox, but the ZIP drive was not recognized.
The SCSIConfig program, however, does the same job, and it did
recognize the ZIP drive. So,
5. ">>Run SCSIConfig". Do *NOT* use "Low Level Format".
6. Select the new drive (ZIP 100)
7. Select "Config Drive"
8. Select "Reload Geometry"
9. Click on "OK"
10. Select "Partition"
11. Double-click on "QDH0".
The default device name for the ZIP drive is QHD0:, but I prefer
to call mine ZIP:. Naturally, you can pick just about any name
you want.
From the information I have seen, it seems to be recommended that
you stick with only 1 large partition, rather than several smaller
ones. The following settings will give 1 95 Meg. partition.
12. In the window that is now open, I set the following parameters -
they are mostly the defaults:
Name: ZIP Host ID: 7 Filesystem: FFS
Start Cyl: 2 Identifier: Ghosted Block Size: 512
End Cyl: 764 Mask: 0xffffffff Mount: Yes
Total Cyl: 762 Max Transfer: 0xffffff Boot: No
MBytes: 95 Res Low Blocks: 2 Buffers: 32
Res High Blocks: 0 Priority 0
13. When set, click on "OK", then "OK" again.
14. Select "Save Changes". Answer "OK" to 2 warning prompts.
15. Exit SCSIConfig with "Quit".
16. At this point, a requester will inform you that the computer should
now be re-booted, so that the system will recognize the ZIP disk.
So, answer Yes to the "Reboot?" prompt. The computer will soft boot.
All that is left to do now, is to format the ZIP disk. The AmigaDos
"Format" command will do nicely.
17. After the reboot, enter the format command. I use:
>>Format DRIVE ZIP: NOICONS NAME Diskname
The ZIP disk is now ready to use.
From my very limited experience, I have found this to be an excellent
drive - very fast and versatile.
I hope someone finds this information useful.