I have verified that my internal atapi iomega zip drive (100meg), works with win98se, but does not work using Novell Suse linux 10.0. I have the zip icon on the desktop, but it does not access the zip drive. Does the zip need a driver or permission?

shouldn't need anything, probably just misconfigured. what does the fstab look like?

The file owner and file group is root under permissions. When I click the icon after a disk is inserted it says 'the folder contents could not be displayed' in a file system window. I am not sure what you mean by fstab?

The zip drive is controlled by kernel module imm. From a console window, run lsmod to see if imm module is loaded.

If it isn't, you can 'insmod imm' or 'modprobe imm' to load the module.

Fstab is the file /etc/fstab, a table of mountable devices. If the zip drive isn't listed, you won't be able to mount it until you fix fstab.

To fix fstab, you will need information from 'hwinfo --zip' to see what the device name is for your internal zip. My external zip is /dev/sda4; your internal may be the same; it may be different.

I had some, but not complete success. I found the fstab file and here is a copy/paste of the zip drive reference: /dev/hdd4 /media/zip auto noauto,user 0 0

First, I typed lsmod in a terminal window, did not see any imm module reference, then typed modprobe imm and bash did not understand the command. I then went to a su terminal and was able to modprobe the imm module and typed lsmod and here are the references:
Module Size Used by
imm 12680 0
scsi_mod 131304 1 imm

I did not reboot, just inserted a zip disk and received the same error message about not able to open folder zip. Do the above references look correct?

For your internal ATAPI Zip disk, you likely need module ide_floppy. Do a modprobe of this (it should already be part of the available module set) and that should solve your problem. I have a similar internal ATAPI Zip 100, and ide_floppy has always done the trick for me (most recently with my SuSE 9.3).

By the way, when you first attempt to mount the Zip disk, do it as root, just in case there are any permissions issues you also have to deal with. Once you can successfully mount and unmount as root, try it again as an ordinary user. At this point, if it doesn't work, you know that you don't have a hardware or software issue with devices/drivers, but rather just a permissions issue. These are usually much easier to solve!

I did modprobe ide_floppy in root. Here is a copy/paste from root:
linux:~ # mount /media/zip
mount: special device /dev/hdd4 does not exist

I use the gnome file manager gui 99% of the time and dont know how to get to the user files from root. I am not sure if the above is the correct path to the zip drive. Is it possible to use a gui file browser as root?

I'm afraid that you are going to have to get "down n dirty" with the command line to resolve this.

Start a command shell, su to root and issue command:

dmesg >dmesg.txt

Edit file dmesg.txt with your favorite editor and search for "IOMEGA ZIP". You should find a line like:

hdb: IOMEGA ZIP 250 ATAPI, ATAPI FLOPPY drive

The identifier at the start of the line ("hdb" in the above) is the device for your Zip disk. Your Zip drive will be hdb4 (in this case).

So, now you know the device identifier for your ZIP disk. Check that against what is in /etc/fstab for the ZIP disk. If it is not right, update /etc/fstab by editing /etc/fstab (as root).

Now try to mount the device again from the command line (as root):

# mount -t vfat /dev/hdb4 /mnt/zip

Make sure that /mnt/zip exists before you do this. If it doesn't, create it via command "mkdir /mnt/zip". In the above mount command of course, you would replace "hdb4" with whatever your device identifier is.

If you have confirmed that you are using the right device, and you continue to get the "special device hdb4 doesn't exist" message, do the following, which usually works:

# mount -t auto /dev/hdb /mnt/zip

Note the intentional absence of the partition number in the above ("hdb", not "hdb4"). This command WILL fail, but it typically causes the system to create hdb4 for you. Now attempt to mount the device the proper way again:

# mount -t vfat /dev/hdb4 /mnt/zip

and it should work.

In past, I have then taken the sequence of those two mount commands and created a script from it, and then connected that script to a "mount zip disk" item in my main KDE menu, so that I don't have to type all these laborious commands. You are using Gnome, so I can't tell you how to do that. Perhaps someone who knows Gnome could chime in.

Post back if you are still unable to mount the device.

Success!......and a few questions. I rarely if ever use shell commands. I am guessing that dmesg is a command to produce a system text file? Now that the zip drive is mounted to the system, will the zip drive be recognized again without using the mount commands? And can Suse automount multiple zip disks? (example, I forgot which zip disk had the file I am looking for and want to file search a handfull of disks).

Great news! Glad it worked out in the end. dmesg produces a summary of system logs for you, letting you see what the kernel is seeing. It is VERY useful for shaking out new hardware.

What you have done with all the above is mount one specific Zip disk, making it available for SuSE to look at. When you are done, you need to unmount it "umount /mnt/zip". Unfortunately, you have to mount/umount each individual disk. This is an attribute of Linux in general, not just SuSE.

Back to Gnome experts - KDE lets you place device icons on your desktop. When I click the Zip icon on my desktop, it does the mount for me. When I right click it, I can umount and eject with one click. Can I do this with Gnome? I am assuming I can, but since I am not and have never been a Gnome user, I can't offer any advise here.