Strange ZIP Drive Behavior

[Harvey Gratt]

Two people at work have reported instances whereby a zip drive will not
recognize a new zip disk. It shows the directory from a previous zip
disk. This occurs over days (machines are probably left on all the
time). I beleive the machines are running win98se and windows NT
(possibly windows 2000).

Has anyone seen this behavior before and, if so, what is the fix?

Thanks,
Harvey

[Rick]

Post by Harvey Gratt
Two people at work have reported instances whereby a zip drive will not
recognize a new zip disk. It shows the directory from a previous zip
disk. This occurs over days (machines are probably left on all the
time). I beleive the machines are running win98se and windows NT
(possibly windows 2000).
Has anyone seen this behavior before and, if so, what is the fix?
Thanks,
Harvey

That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

[Harvey Gratt]

Post by Rick

Post by Harvey Gratt
Two people at work have reported instances whereby a zip drive will not
recognize a new zip disk. It shows the directory from a previous zip
disk. This occurs over days (machines are probably left on all the
time). I beleive the machines are running win98se and windows NT
(possibly windows 2000).
Has anyone seen this behavior before and, if so, what is the fix?
Thanks,
Harvey

That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

[Harvey Gratt]

Post by Rick

Post by Harvey Gratt
Two people at work have reported instances whereby a zip drive will not
recognize a new zip disk. It shows the directory from a previous zip
disk. This occurs over days (machines are probably left on all the
time). I beleive the machines are running win98se and windows NT
(possibly windows 2000).
Has anyone seen this behavior before and, if so, what is the fix?
Thanks,
Harvey

That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

Oops! Hit send too quick!

Does the hardware eject issue render the "new" disk unuseable? From what
the users indicate, they can still read its contents on a different machine.

Thanks,
Harvey

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

Post by Harvey Gratt

Post by Rick
That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

Does the hardware eject issue render the "new" disk unuseable? From what
the users indicate, they can still read its contents on a different machine.

It may be a configuration problem - likely with the system BIOS
settings if these are IDE/ATAPI drives. Make sure the BIOS is set to
"None" or "Not Installed" at the Zip drive's location (if there is a
Zip-specific setting, that might also be worth trying). If the BIOS
is left set to Auto, it might try to control the Zip as a fixed hard
drive.

Make sure each Zip disk has a unique label (aka volume name). And it
might be useful to press F5 after changing disks (and maybe right
after ejecting the first one). This should cause Explorer or My
Computer to refresh its device listing.

You can find some configuration and usage tips at my website.

[Harvey Gratt]

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

Post by Harvey Gratt

Post by Rick
That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

Does the hardware eject issue render the "new" disk unuseable? From what
the users indicate, they can still read its contents on a different machine.

It may be a configuration problem - likely with the system BIOS
settings if these are IDE/ATAPI drives. Make sure the BIOS is set to
"None" or "Not Installed" at the Zip drive's location (if there is a
Zip-specific setting, that might also be worth trying). If the BIOS
is left set to Auto, it might try to control the Zip as a fixed hard
drive.
Make sure each Zip disk has a unique label (aka volume name). And it
might be useful to press F5 after changing disks (and maybe right
after ejecting the first one). This should cause Explorer or My
Computer to refresh its device listing.
You can find some configuration and usage tips at my website.

Thanks for the information.

Harvey

[KWW]

I have also seen a difference having loaded the Iomega ZIP (Iomegaware)
software. Sure Windows 2000 seems to control the ZIP disks properly, but
the directory doesn't refresh (it just returns "invalid directory") when, in
the "folders" column of Windows Explorer it has the old folder names. F5
doesn't update it either. However, the Iomegaware ZIP drivers/software
forces a refresh.

Before loading it I had TWO disks ruined by my USB Zip drive when the
machine went into "sleep" mode and, upon powering up, it had sort of
dismounted "incorrectly" the USB device(s). Since I could still read/write
to the disk I thought it was OK... NOT! On the 2nd disk, just a directory
read messed up the contents. Some of it was hard to replace and will take
MONTHS to recover, if ever! (so much for not backing up...)
--
KWW

Post by Harvey Gratt

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

Post by Harvey Gratt

Post by Rick
That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

Does the hardware eject issue render the "new" disk unuseable? From what
the users indicate, they can still read its contents on a different machine.

It may be a configuration problem - likely with the system BIOS
settings if these are IDE/ATAPI drives. Make sure the BIOS is set to
"None" or "Not Installed" at the Zip drive's location (if there is a
Zip-specific setting, that might also be worth trying). If the BIOS
is left set to Auto, it might try to control the Zip as a fixed hard
drive.
Make sure each Zip disk has a unique label (aka volume name). And it
might be useful to press F5 after changing disks (and maybe right
after ejecting the first one). This should cause Explorer or My
Computer to refresh its device listing.
You can find some configuration and usage tips at my website.

Thanks for the information.
Harvey

[Rick]

Post by Harvey Gratt

Post by Rick

Post by Harvey Gratt
Two people at work have reported instances whereby a zip drive will not
recognize a new zip disk. It shows the directory from a previous zip
disk. This occurs over days (machines are probably left on all the
time). I beleive the machines are running win98se and windows NT
(possibly windows 2000).
Has anyone seen this behavior before and, if so, what is the fix?
Thanks,
Harvey

That's a known problem if they aren't using the software eject option.
The cache won't flush with a hardware disk eject so anything remaining
in the cache will overwrite the new disk and screw up the FAT.

Oops! Hit send too quick!
Does the hardware eject issue render the "new" disk unuseable? From what
the users indicate, they can still read its contents on a different machine.
Thanks,
Harvey

It can, if you write to the disk without refreshing the device list
first as DeepOne suggested. As well, if you don't use the software eject
opton on a disk that has been written to, the last files being written
may not be complete. There's a difference between being able to see a
directory/file list on the disk and whether the data within the files is
actually good. Given enough time the cache *will* finish up all delayed
writes. But if you do a hardware eject too soon after the last file
saved you can end up with incomplete/trashed/open files. Software eject
forces the cache to complete the writes before ejecting the disk.