Zip Drive problems

[Guest]

I have recently purchased a new computer system:

Duron 800Mhz
128 PC133 RAM
Asus A7V133 Motherboard
A TNT2 32Mb 64M Graphics card
Samsung 52x CD-ROM
SoundBlaster Vibra 128
56k Modem
20gig drive
and a 100meg IDE ATAPI internal Zip Drive
and Im running Win98 (SP1)

Ok, my Problem is with the Zip drive. I had it on my old Pentium 200 system and it worked fine on that. Now the moment I transfer it into my new system It hangs for about 1 to 5 minutes when copying large volumes of data. There are no error messages (except the one i get when I eject the disk once it has hanged saying that it cannot read the disk in drive b). It just gets half way through copying the data, and then hangs. The disk light is off on this occasion. And usually I have to take the disk out before the transfer process ends, which usually ends up crashing my system. As such it has become impossible to use my drive. The connections are fine since the disk light is on when I turn the computer on and its drive icon appears in My Computer, Windows Explorer and in the System Folder in Control Panel.

I have the drive as a Master on my secondary IDE (my CDROM is the slave) and my harddrive on the primary IDE, if thats of any help, since I was reading an Iomega FAQ which recommended this.

I also heard of Some incompatibility issues with my Asus A7V133 Motherboard on the iomega website So I flashed my bios to version 1004.

I thought there was a problem with the disk drive first so I asked for a replacement. I installed it and it still had the same problem.

So I had my disks full formatted at my friends house (because I could not format them with my own drive). The disks worked fine on my friends computer and at my uni computers, but when i popped them in my own drive the problem was still there. So i'm thinking the zip disks are fine so it must be the drive. But I had the drive replaced with a new one and it worked fine in my old computer, so I'm thinking it must be the drivers.

I install new drivers from Iomega and the probelm is still there. So now I have a suspicion it has something to do with how my system is setup or if there are any compatibility issues. Ive tweaked my comp to the max and have the LATEST drivers and service packs off the net for basically EVERYTHING on it (Dx8, latest official Detonator drivers, win98 SP1 etc etc), so hopefully driver issues arent part of my probelm.


Any suggestions??


- 2nd Place is Da Frst Losa -

 

[hammerhead]

I have the same Zip drive, installed in Pentium, PII and Duron systems over the last three years with no probs.

Can't think of anything beyond what you've tried to troubleshoot. Other than perhaps installing it as the only device on the secondary IDE channel.

Not sure about the `can't read from drive b` message, an IDE Zip drive should be drive d at least?

 

[dhlucke]

I've never heard anyone put the zip on b: as a primary. I would switch their places and have the zip as slave and I'm pretty sure that Iomega has a program that will allow you to switch the drive letter.

<font color=red>They're out there, waiting, watching, listening. Be afraid! The cookies are coming!</font color=red>

 

[camieabz]

I've always had my ZIP 100 on SCSI. It mgiht be worth while if you can get hold of an old SCSI card.

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[Guest]

Well I have had the exact same Zip problem since installing my new mother board AV7133 VIA Appollo KT133AChipset..so it looks to me like a compatibility issue with this MB, as mine as well I had this Zip in an older Comp. and it worked perfectly..somehow I manage to get files restored in between the blue screens..thanx for your info..Now Im going to try to work on the solution.if I get lucky I'll post back PJ)

PJs)

 

[Guest]

Join the club! I've got exactly the same problem.

System:
AMD Athlon 1.33GHz
Asus A7M266 MB
512MB PC2100 RAM
SB Live! 5.1 s/c
Creative GeForce2 Pro 64MB v/c
Adaptec 2940 SCSI card
Yamaha CD/RW (SCSI)

My primary IDE has a Maxtor 60GB H/D. Secondary master is a Pioneer DVD-116 and the Zip drive is secondary slave. At fist, everything seemed okay. Then (and this may be coincidence), I installed the Windows 98 miniport driver. Since then, the Zip will write one file, then take ages to do anything else.

So far, I've installed the latest VIA 4-in-1 drivers (v.1432), and a file with is supposed to cure the problem. So far, all I've managed to do is shift the Zip drive from B: to F:

Nobody seems to be interested in solving this problem. I'm probably going to junk the drive and get a USB one instead.




If at first you don't succeed, give up.

 

[Guest]

I had the exact same problem---there is nothing wrong with your zip drive. I have a Asus A7V133 with a 1.4 ghz cpu and did the following to fix the problem.
I installed ONLY the Via4in1.32 AGP driver, miniport driver, and the ATAPI driver. I then went to the Iomega site and downloaded and installed the newest iomegaware, Win98, and the Beta fix for the 686b chipset. I selected the miniport driver install for the beta fix. On my machine, the zip drive is the slave on my master ide port. I don't know if that makes any difference. I also have bios version 1005A.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by copterdrvr on 09/05/01 08:04 AM.</EM></FONT></P>