(Fwd) ZIP-drive (parellel) under Debian (fwd)

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

Tom asked me to pass this message along to the list, so here it is.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 06:38:37 + 12
From: Tom Butz <tomb@midland.co.nz>
To: dwarf@polaris.net
Subject: (Fwd) ZIP-drive (parellel) under Debian

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
From:          Self <midland>
To:            Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>
Subject:       ZIP-drive (parellel) under Debian
Reply-to:      tomb@midland.co.nz
Date:          Tue, 11 Feb 1997 20:43:45

Hi Dale,

would you please pass on the following. Thanks,

Tom.
***
The parallel ZIP-drive works without a hitch: Debian recognises it as 
/dev/sda4, in fact it is a hard-disk. MS-DOS thinks it's a big floppy 
though, according to MSD.EXE after I ran GUEST.EXE (off the support 
floppy that came with the drive).

Debian doesn't require any support from MS-DOS, it just runs like 
any other hard-disk (use 'fdisk' to set up the partition-table, and 
then 'mkfs' to create a file-system).

A warning, however: do not set your parallel port to 'Enhanced 
Parallel Port' - leave it set to 'Standard Parallel Port', otherwise 
you will have time-out problems formatting it under Debian (my experience).
(Might be coincidental). Speedwise Debian would beat MS-DOS hands down 
anyway, and shouldn't really need that last bit of tweaking.

If you format it under MS-DOS you can still mount it under Debian: it 
doesn't complain about the lack of a partition-table. Read and write 
work like a dream.

Thanks for such an excellent system.

Application note: under Linux you can use one task to back up your MS-DOS 
things on a ZIP-drive, while doing some typing/translating in another task. Try the same 
running MS-DOS...
***