Disabling write caching on IDE ZIP drive?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I have an old 500MHz P3 Dell Dimension with an IDE ZIP-100 drive.
A while ago I updated it from Win98 to Win2k. I've just had reason
to use the Zip drive and have found that when writing to the disk
the data is not all written out straight away. If I eject the disk
immediately the operation is finished, I soon get error messages
about delayed writes failing.

On an even older SCSI-based system I have, the Zip drive is locked
until all the data is written, but this doesn't seem to be the case
on the IDE system.

I've tried turning off Write Cache Enable in the drive properties,
but the setting doesn't persist: if I immediately re-display the
properties, the tick is already enabled again.

I've tried loading IomegaWare, but that makes no difference.

Can anyone tell me how to turn off delayed writes for the Zip drive
completely under Win2k? Thanks!

Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Tony Mountifield" <tony@softins.clara.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dcomph$egt$1@softins.clara.co.uk...
>I have an old 500MHz P3 Dell Dimension with an IDE ZIP-100 drive.
> A while ago I updated it from Win98 to Win2k. I've just had reason
> to use the Zip drive and have found that when writing to the disk
> the data is not all written out straight away. If I eject the disk
> immediately the operation is finished, I soon get error messages
> about delayed writes failing.
>
> On an even older SCSI-based system I have, the Zip drive is locked
> until all the data is written, but this doesn't seem to be the case
> on the IDE system.
>
> I've tried turning off Write Cache Enable in the drive properties,
> but the setting doesn't persist: if I immediately re-display the
> properties, the tick is already enabled again.
>
> I've tried loading IomegaWare, but that makes no difference.
>
> Can anyone tell me how to turn off delayed writes for the Zip drive
> completely under Win2k? Thanks!
>
> Cheers
> Tony
> --
> Tony Mountifield
> Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
> Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org



Is it safe to assume that you're writing to the IDE Zip from the internal
IDE hard disk in the system? (If so, both drives may be on the same IDE1
channel....which may or may not be relevant).


Stew

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In article <AISHe.2456$jq.1059@bignews3.bellsouth.net>,
S.Lewis <stew1960@mail.com> wrote:
>
> "Tony Mountifield" <tony@softins.clara.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:dcomph$egt$1@softins.clara.co.uk...
> >
> > Can anyone tell me how to turn off delayed writes for the Zip drive
> > completely under Win2k? Thanks!
>
> Is it safe to assume that you're writing to the IDE Zip from the internal
> IDE hard disk in the system? (If so, both drives may be on the same IDE1
> channel....which may or may not be relevant).

I don't think it is relevant, but I have two hard drives on the primary
IDE, a CD-ROM as secondary master and the ZIP as secondary slave.

Writing to the ZIP drive will be from an application's memory, whether
or not that data was originally read from the hard drive.

Cheers
Tony
--
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony@softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony@mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Tony Mountifield" <tony@softins.clara.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dcpnts$5e7$1@softins.clara.co.uk...
> In article <AISHe.2456$jq.1059@bignews3.bellsouth.net>,
> S.Lewis <stew1960@mail.com> wrote:
>>
>> "Tony Mountifield" <tony@softins.clara.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:dcomph$egt$1@softins.clara.co.uk...
>> >
>> > Can anyone tell me how to turn off delayed writes for the Zip drive
>> > completely under Win2k? Thanks!
>>
>> Is it safe to assume that you're writing to the IDE Zip from the internal
>> IDE hard disk in the system? (If so, both drives may be on the same IDE1
>> channel....which may or may not be relevant).
>
> I don't think it is relevant, but I have two hard drives on the primary
> IDE, a CD-ROM as secondary master and the ZIP as secondary slave.
>
> Writing to the ZIP drive will be from an application's memory, whether
> or not that data was originally read from the hard drive.
>
> Cheers
> Tony
> --
>

I'm not positive under W2K, as it's too old for me to remember, but in XP,
you go to device manager, right click on the drive, choose the policy tab
and click the "Optimize for quick removal" radio button. Might be the same
on W2K or at least similar.

Tom

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Tony Mountifield wrote:
> In article <AISHe.2456$jq.1059@bignews3.bellsouth.net>,
> S.Lewis <stew1960@mail.com> wrote:
>
>>"Tony Mountifield" <tony@softins.clara.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:dcomph$egt$1@softins.clara.co.uk...
>>
>>>Can anyone tell me how to turn off delayed writes for the Zip drive
>>>completely under Win2k? Thanks!
>>
>>Is it safe to assume that you're writing to the IDE Zip from the internal
>>IDE hard disk in the system? (If so, both drives may be on the same IDE1
>>channel....which may or may not be relevant).
>
>
> I don't think it is relevant, but I have two hard drives on the primary
> IDE, a CD-ROM as secondary master and the ZIP as secondary slave.
>
> Writing to the ZIP drive will be from an application's memory, whether
> or not that data was originally read from the hard drive.

IIRC, the standard procedure for completing the writing to
a ZIP drive in either Windows NT or Windows 2000 was to use
the software eject function instead of the hardware eject
button. This is supposed to flush the cache to complete the
write before the ZIP disk is ejected.