try mount /dev/hda4, /dev/hdb4, /dev/hdc4, and /dev/hdd4. one of them must work.
mine doesn't mount as /dev/sda4 on my laptop since linux think the device like an hard drive.
it mount the device as /dev/sda4 for most external zips. defaults is the /dev/hd?? for laptops.
hope it helps

I'm not certain, but I think the situation is this:

The earlier atapi zip drives act as a giant floppy, so they'll mount as sda4 because the floppy-style boot record is at the start of partition 4. The later atapi zip drives have a jumper on the back that allows them to be configured like a proper atapi drive, and if selected, will mount at sda.

edit: I'll add that the hd?=ide-scsi option must be added to the kernel options if the jumper is set to the floppy option, and it's that which relocates it from hd?4 to sda4, as was mentioned earlier in this thread.

given this question am i entitled to wonder if anyone even read my post?

same when i do

mount -t vfat /dev/sda4 /mnt/zip

which is really quite a worrying thing to be honest - but most people seem to have skipped this and moved on.

so, my new questions, which i'd really like explained cos i don't understand:

1. why, based all the other info in this thread, should it be hdb or hdd or anything else when the evidence points to sda and hdc?

2. why would it matter if there is a disk in the drive or not? i makes no difference when i am not using scsi emu - why should it when i am?

1. Yes, if it's on the secondary IDE bus as master, then it's hdc. And you evidently know that you need "hdc=ide-scsi" to remap it as sda.

2. It does seem that the zip handling is a bit broken and none too reliable, and behaves differently on different PCs. If you've got the floppy-emulation/normal-ATAPI jumper, you can try changing that too see what happens.

cheers, dave, glad you agree - if it ain't on sda or hdc i'll eat my hat

i got the emulate line in the kernel append options - works great for the cdr but just don;t like the zip. the errors it seems to have when it finds zip at sda worry me - and the fact it runs off and is unrecoverable if you try to mount it there.

i don;t have the jumper as it is a self contained modular drive

ithink i may have to continuing using two lilo entries - it's not a problem - i have to reboot to change the drives anyway (you are supposed to have to but i do) so it's not a prob to boot a different image - just nioce to get the creases ironed out and check you aren;t doing something wrong