Day Eight
`ZIP-it Good`
You can purchase the standard SCSI Iomega Zip drive
and plug this either into the back of your CDRom or
direct to your 25pin on the SCSI port if you have one
connected to the accelerator card.
Make sure you get the SCSI version. Iomega did make the
parallel port version
With your box of goodies you will get the Tools Disk
which sadly will be of no use. The cable also will be
useless if you plan connecting to a Centronics, so go
get the 25pin to Centronics cable.
Iomega reserve either Unit 5 or 6 for the drive making
the choices easy for selection. I chose Unit 5. Also
you can terminate the chain if this is the last Unit
on your SCSI chain by simply setting the unit to terminate
The switches for bot unit number and termination are on
the back of the unit
That done connect your ZIP drive and switch everything on
OK ! Now the technical stuff
The drive is more like a hard-drive than a floppy and
as such has to be mounted. To do this you will need to
format a standard 100Mb ZIP disk. I use an application
called Zip4mat, and I`m pretty sure I got this off Aminet
First though you need to edit a couple of things. First you
edit the FormatZFS tool to tell the Tooltype that you are
using a `squirrelscsi` and that it is Unit 5. Similarly
you then edit the ZIP_SFS list to show the squirrelscsi and
the Unit number.
You can also edit the Filesystem. I used the SmartFilesystem
and copied the SmartFilesystem from the application software
to the `L` directory.
Next you format the drive using FormatZFS. This takes a few
minutes and at the prompt you name your drive. I always use
IHD0. Then having done this go into the SCSI Toolbox and
locate the Iomega ZIP drive from the list and change the
partition name to IHD0, make it non-bootable and make the
File System the Custom File System. Save changes.
The computer will now mount the drive with a similar labelled
disk each time you start the machine with a disk in. The
Amiga will even create a ZIP icon on the desktop.
Also copy the ZPC tooltype to DEVS and edit for squirrelSCSI
and set the File System as CrossDOS Filesystem and you will
be able to read PC ZIP disks.
Word of warning... The Amiga ZIP disk will be mounted as a
hard-drive and therefore the disk needs to be in the ZIP
on boot. The CrossDOS PC disk can be mounted at anytime
Once one disk has been mounted as an Amiga disk, subsequent
disks will be recognised, but they must all have the same label.
Wanna know what to do with it ?