Can't change Zip drive letter

[Hackworth]

I have an internal Zip 100 ATAPI drive installed in a home-built AMD-based
system with a KT400 chipset, 512MB, and an Athlon 2400+ processor... all
running on Windows Me.

I've installed the latest driver/software from Iomega, but I can't seem to
change the drive letter. By default, the Zip drive wants to show up as a
floppy drive B:. When I go into Device Manager to try to change it to D:, it
appears to accept the new letter, then tells me to reboot. After rebooting,
guess what? Yep, the Zip 100 is still showing up as drive B:! What's up with
that?!

Funny, though. I have internal Zip 100 drives on three other systems in the
house, all running the same Iomega driver/software version, and I had no
trouble at all setting those up as drive D:. (Those systems all have
different motherboard and chipsets.) It's not like I'm new at this! What
could I be doing wrong?

[D***@ix.netcom.com]

Post by Hackworth
I have an internal Zip 100 ATAPI drive installed in a home-built AMD-based
system with a KT400 chipset, 512MB, and an Athlon 2400+ processor... all
running on Windows Me.
I've installed the latest driver/software from Iomega, but I can't seem to
change the drive letter. By default, the Zip drive wants to show up as a
floppy drive B:. When I go into Device Manager to try to change it to D:, it
appears to accept the new letter, then tells me to reboot. After rebooting,
guess what? Yep, the Zip 100 is still showing up as drive B:! What's up with
that?!

Check the drive's jumper settings, and make sure it's not jumpered for
one of the "Drive A:" settings.

Get into the system BIOS setup, and try telling it that there is
nothing connected (NONE or Not Installed) where you have the Zip drive
connected. If there is a Zip-specific setting, you could try that as
well, but do not use the Auto setting. If the BIOS has a setting
regarding removable ATAPI drives being emulated as floppies or hard
disks, choose hard disks.

You can find some more configuration tips at my website.

[Hackworth]

<snip>

Post by D***@ix.netcom.com

Post by Hackworth
I've installed the latest driver/software from Iomega, but I can't seem to
change the drive letter.

<snip>

Post by D***@ix.netcom.com
Check the drive's jumper settings, and make sure it's not jumpered for
one of the "Drive A:" settings.
Get into the system BIOS setup, and try telling it that there is
nothing connected (NONE or Not Installed) where you have the Zip drive
connected. If there is a Zip-specific setting, you could try that as
well, but do not use the Auto setting. If the BIOS has a setting
regarding removable ATAPI drives being emulated as floppies or hard
disks, choose hard disks.
You can find some more configuration tips at my website.

This is helpful stuff, DeepOne. I will indeed try everything and also will
check your site. Thanks.

[Hackworth]

Post by Hackworth
<snip>

Post by D***@ix.netcom.com

Post by Hackworth
I've installed the latest driver/software from Iomega, but I can't seem

to

Post by D***@ix.netcom.com

Post by Hackworth
change the drive letter.

<snip>

Post by D***@ix.netcom.com
Check the drive's jumper settings, and make sure it's not jumpered for
one of the "Drive A:" settings.
Get into the system BIOS setup, and try telling it that there is
nothing connected (NONE or Not Installed) where you have the Zip drive
connected. If there is a Zip-specific setting, you could try that as
well, but do not use the Auto setting. If the BIOS has a setting
regarding removable ATAPI drives being emulated as floppies or hard
disks, choose hard disks.
You can find some more configuration tips at my website.

This is helpful stuff, DeepOne. I will indeed try everything and also will
check your site. Thanks.

That did it! I set it to NONE in the location where it was (secondary slave)
and it came right up in Windows Me as the D: drive. If it's set to AUTO, the
BIOS of course detects it as a Zip drive, but then it wants to be B: and I
can't change it.

On my own system, my BIOS has Zip-drive-specific settings, and I can even
specify how I want the system to recognize the Zip drive (i.e., as a floppy
or hard disk).

Thanks for your help. One final question, does it really matter whether it's
B: or D:? I mean, does it make any difference whether the system considers
the Zip a floppy or a hard disk?

[D***@ix.netcom.com]

"Hackworth" <***@spamless.com> wrote:

[snip]

Post by Hackworth
Thanks for your help. One final question, does it really matter whether it's
B: or D:? I mean, does it make any difference whether the system considers
the Zip a floppy or a hard disk?

Well, there's this (from an Iomega .pdf manual):

When emulating a floppy drive, the Zip drive’s firmware uses two
different formatting variations:

The ATA IDENTITY PACKET DEVICE Command (A1h) reports “Floppy” at
word offset 44

The drive adds 32 to all LBAs specified in all commands, thus
making the first 32 LBAs unaccessible and reducing disk capacity
by 16KB.

CAUTION If the drive is in drive A: mode and a disk is formatted
using an old version of Iomega Tools, the newly formatted disk will
be unreadable in other Zip drives. The old Iomega Tools, which does
not recognize drive A: mode, and will lay down a second 32 LBA
partition on the disk. All updated versions of Iomega Tools that
supports drive A: mode (including IomegaWare software) are backward
compatible and will support previous Iomega drives.