I/O to ZIP drive temporarily locks up machine

[Krzys Majewski <majewski@cs.ubc.ca>]

I don't know how to say  this properly.. when backing up files from my
IDE  hard  drive  to  my  parallel  port  ZIP100  drive,  the  machine
occasionally  blocks: it's like  everything freezes  for about  half a
minute before I can do anything  again. This only happens when the ZIP
drive is  running (not  sure if  it's R or  W or  both). This  is with
kernel 2.2.17,  using the  imm driver  as a module.  I've set  all the
default "safe"  options for  the driver, like  "slow and  reliable" or
whatnot.  Is this a  kernel bug?  IMM driver  bug? User  bug? Feature?
Help? chris