Re: problems with Jaz partitioning
On 3 Nov, Andy Dougherty let loose with:
> On 2 Nov 1997, David S. Zelinsky wrote:
>
>> I recently had a problem with my Jaz drive, that Iomega, after giving me quite
>> a run-around, eventually conceded was a bad drive (Jaz Tools couldn't even
>> complete a format).
>
> I have had similar problems. I have gone through 5 Jaz drives and 7 disks
> in less than a year. The longest one lasted was 3 months. Others have
> failed out-of-the-box. Iomega has replaced them all under warranty
> (though the last replacement took over a month, and I have racked up a
> fair amount of shipping costs).
>
> I have, at various times, tried to use the same Jaz drive with Windows NT,
> Solaris_x86, Solaris_SPARC, and Debian (both stable and unstable)
> distributions. I have used three different motherboards/SCSI controllers,
> several different cable sets, and two different active terminators.
>
> I am convinced that the problems are with the Jaz disks and drive, not the
> O.S. or computer.
>
>> But in my conversations with Iomega's tech support, I was told not to use any
>> formatting tools other than the one provided by Iomega (JazTools, for Win95).
>> They claim that other formatting utilities can destroy the Jaz disk. They
>> said this is because the Jaz disks use "proprietary hidden tracks, called
>> Z-tracks", and non-Jaz formatters won't handle these correctly.
>
>> I don't know whether any of this is true, or whether it applies to fsck (they
>> specifically said the Win95 ScanDisk, as well as the Adaptec 2940 BIOS
>> utility, are a no-no's); and if so, I don't understand how one could cause
>> actual damage to the disk (as opposed to data on the disk). But that's what
>> they said.
>
> Hmm. Iomega support never told me that. And, their FAX-back service
> actually sends you instructions on how to use other formatting utilities.
> Sounds like they need to get their act together.
>
>> If anyone can shed any light on this issue, I'd be interested. As
>> things stand now, I'm a little afraid to put anything on the disk other
>> than the vfat partition made by JazTools.
>
> I've also had problems with the Jaz Tools original disk where I didn't
> touch the formatting at all. In short, I have yet to find the recipe to
> keep my Jaz drives going.
>
> Keep good backups :-).
>
> Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu
I must say that I find all this strange... I have been using my jaz
drive under both Linux and Win95 with ext2 and vfat-formatted media
with no problems other than one defective disk.
To be honest though, I don't trust *any* storage media much. After all,
they all fail... so keep *redundant* backups is what I say. ;-)
C ya!
Tim
--
"Science has promised man power...But, as so often happens when
people are seduced by promises of power, the price is servitude
and impotence. Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose."
Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT
Linux is choice - Linux is power.
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E-Mail: Tim Ferrell <tjferrell@infoave.net
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