parallel port zip 250 drive fc2: invisible?

mfries · 07-19-2004, 05:08 PM

I recently installed FC2. I have been called upon to dust off some old zip disks and disk drive to access some archived data, so I need to get it working.

I plugged in the external drive, attached it to the parallel port, and rebooted, hoping that it would be sort of a "plug and play" kind of deal, but when I checked the mount tool, only the floppy and cd were listed as choices.

downloaded something from iomega, a file named iw with a skimpy set of instructions, but could not figure that out.

I have been looking around for a bit, and someone mentioned to go to fstab file. Mine looks like this:

[root@172 etc]# more fstab
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
LABEL=/home /home ext3 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
LABEL=/tmp /tmp ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=/usr /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=/var /var ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

Can I just add an appropriate line to this? The machine seems to have no knowledge of the zip disk's existance, is this where that knowledge would reside?

I have also read some advice that says to "create a mountpoint" . I am not really sure what that means, I think that is the point where some mechanical device access a drive, but that is about it. Some reference pointers to what this is would help out as well.

Sorry for the long winded question, but in summary: what do I need to do to access the data on the zip drive?

Thanks,
Mike

320mb · 07-21-2004, 10:53 AM

OK, this is the line in my fstab, I too have a parallel port 250zip

Code:

/dev/sda4       /zip250        auto      noauto,owner,users,rw     0   0

you can mount it in /mnt if you want, I have mine in /
and my user can access it with read, write permissions
I also made a desktop config as a hard disk, so the Icon can mount/unmount the disk from the desktop.......and when you issue commands for the iw file, the disk must unmounted for the iw to work, you'll have to work with it a little...................now I have this in my /etc/modules.conf

Code:

alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc

and I put this in my /etc/rc.d/rc.local file

Code:

/sbin/modprobe parport
/sbin/modprobe imm

and in my /etc/rc.d/rc.modules this is enabled.........

Code:

 /sbin/modprobe ide-scsi

ok, this is done.......Now you will need to recompile your kernel, make sure that you have
parallel support.......I have mine as a Module

Code:

# Parallel port support
#
CONFIG_PARPORT=m
CONFIG_PARPORT_PC=m
# CONFIG_PARPORT_AMIGA is not set
# CONFIG_PARPORT_MFC3 is not set
# CONFIG_PARPORT_ATARI is not set

and go to the section SCSI............mine looks like this.......

Code:

# SCSI support
#
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
CONFIG_SD_EXTRA_DEVS=40

and also goto the SCSI low level drivers area.......mine is this.........

Code:

# CONFIG_SCSI_PPA is not set
CONFIG_SCSI_IMM=m
CONFIG_SCSI_IZIP_EPP16=y
# CONFIG_SCSI_IZIP_SLOW_CTR is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C406A is not set
# CONFIG_SCSI_NCR53C7xx is not set

Now, you will have to experiment with the IW file you got from Iomega.........but it works by issuing
a command thru a term window........If the disk is read only as all of mine are I put in this.....

Code:

iw -p /dev/sda4 -ue

this will unprotect the disk until it is ejetced.........

""WARNING .....don't accidentally use the -f command, as this will FORMAT the disk and you will
lose all your data!!!
post back here if you need more info.............!!