🚀 go-pugleaf

I will be submitting the following information to the excellent
Internet iomega Zip FAQ (http://earth.cnct.com/home/steveg/zipfaqintro.html).

The FAQ is great but doesn't have any info about Windows NT
compatibility, and based on my http://www.altavista.digital.com search
of recent articles related to NT and Zip drive, it sure seems like
there needs to be.

Note: I don't even have a Zip drive *or* Windows NT installed on my
home machine yet, so I really need clarification on a few issues.  See
my bracketed comments/questions and e-mail me or post.  I'll repost
the final version of these questions when I submit them.  Btw, I just
noticed there are comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* and comp.periphs.scsi
FAQs, which I'll read and reference.

Thanks,
Jamshid Afshar
jamshid@io.com

--- proposed additions to the Zip drive FAQ ---

QUESTIONS:

1. Does the iomega Zip drive work on NT?

The SCSI version of the Zip drive works fine under NT 3.51.  No
special setup or drivers are required -- just plug it into your SCSI
card, reboot, and NT automatically recognizes it as a removable hard
drive.  The parallel port Zip drive, though, does NOT work with NT
because a HAL (Hardware Application Layer) driver needs to be written
by iomega (earliest estimate is 2Q96).

2. But someone says I can use the parallel port Zip drive if I
download some file "PPA3.EXE" from ftp.microsoft.com.

No, that file is only for Windows95 [and it may not even be needed?].

3. What's a SCSI card?  Is the IOMEGA "Zoom SCSI" card okay?

[???] The "Zoom SCSI" is certainly inexpensive (~$50).  It's
reportedly a stripped down version of the 1522[???].  It is ISA, only
has an external connector, and cannot use DMA.  [Are there any other
limitations compared to other SCSI cards?  Is setup easy? Can I, for
example, hook up a SCSI CD-ROM drive to it (external only?)?  A
scanner? Should I invest in a SCSI-II card, and if so any
recommendations of PnP ones?  Will I have problems if I buy an
internal SCSI CD-ROM drive with a separate card?]

4. Can I use long file names on my Zip disks?  I.e., can I format my
Zip disks using NTFS (and NTFS compression)?

Yes, a Zip drive looks just like a hard drive [???] to NT.  Just
remember to use "unmount"[???] to eject the ZIP disks or you could
corrupt your NTFS Zip disks.  Unfortunately, you must be logged in
with administrator privledges to use "unmount".  Of course, these
NTFS-formatted disks cannot be read by non-NT machines. [what happens?]

5. Can I connect a SCSI Zip drive to a machine with only a parallel
port if I use an "Adaptec EPP MiniSCSI cable".  This works for the
SCSI-1 Sysquest 200MB by using a special device driver [specific to
the Sysquest or specific to the Adaptec cable?].

This does NOT work for Zip drives UNLESS [for sure?] you daisy-chain
an additional SCSI device to the Zip drive which has "volatage on the
TRMPWR pine".  The Adaptec cable needs this to power itself.  If you
can do this then the Zip drive will work using the regular Adaptec
drivers. [Besides, it still won't work on NT unless Adaptec provides
an NT driver?] [I assume the Adaptec cable requires the special
parallel port EPP; how do you know if you have that? Btw, how do I
know if I have a "fast serial"(??) port on my Ambra P60?]

6. What's ZipTools and can I use it under NT?

ZipTools is software that comes with your Zip drive.  [??? I have no
idea what it does or whether it's NTFS compatibile.]

REPORTED PROBLEMS:

1. Some NT users have reported that you cannot [or just should not?]
eject the Zip disk unless you use "unmount"[???].  Also, it will not
unmount if you recently read the Zip disk with the File Manager and
have not closed File Manager (even if you close the Zip disk window).

2. "isengard@isengard.com (David Braxton)" has reported that if the
Zip drive was connected and running while installing Windows NT Workstation
3.51, the installation program crashes ("blue screen of death hex
dump").  Turning off or unplugging the Zip drive allows installation
to run.

3. You cannot write-protect disks until NT compatible drivers are
available [???].

4. "ericc@ares.csd.net (Eric Cloninger)" reports 96/01/25 that his
SCSI Zip drive doesn't work on his NT 3.51 Gateway P5-90 with "Adaptec
1542 CF SCSI Master card".  The drive shows up in the File Manager,
but he gets an "Error finding sector" when clicking on the drive.  It
does work under the Windows95 dual boot of the same machine.