Amiga FAQ
Amiga Formatting
Amiga Software
BeBox Formatting

You do have to keep a couple of things in mind, no matter what HD partitioner you're using:

• All your Zip disks should be paritioned and otherwise setup the same - The Amiga is not quite good at removable media yet, and isn't smart enough to handle disk changing if your disks have different partitions or device names. You can make disks with different partitioning, but be aware you might have to reboot with the disk in the machine for the system to accept it.
• You can make multiple partitons, but the above note still applies! Make everything the same!
• All your Zip disks should have the same partition name(s). This is different from the volume name, which is the name of the disk as it appears on Workbench, which you are free to change. For instance, DH0: might be your hard drive's DEVICE name, where as "System" might be it's VOLUME name.

Preparing a ZIP disk

1. Load up HDToolbox - If you have an Amiga 3000 or a Commodore SCSI controller, just double click on the program. If you are using a 3rd party controller, you must first edit the icon and add a tooltype called "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=xxx.device" where xxx.device is the name of your SCSI controller's device, like "gvpscsi.device". Consult your manual to find this out.
2. Click on your ZIP drive in the list; It should come up something like "IOMEGA ZIP 100" on either device ID 5 or 6, or if you have the internal version of the Zip Drive, it can come up on any device number from 0 to 6, depending on how you set it.
   
   If it does NOT show up correctly and instead comes up as 'undefined', do the following:
   • Select the device in the list, and select "CHANGE DRIVE TYPE".
   • A new window pops up. Select "DEFINE NEW".
   • Another new window pops up. Select "READ DRIVE DEFINITION".
   • Chances are HDToolBox will then pop up a warning requestor about assuming a track size of 68. This is just dandy, so click OK.
   • Select "OK" and then "OK" again until you hit the main menu. Select "SAVE CHANGES TO DRIVE", and then continue on with the below instructions.
     
     
3. Select it and then click on PARTITION DRIVE.
4. Create your partitions and set them up to your heart's desire. I use one single partition that takes up the whole disk (2047 cylinders, which may or may not match what your HDToolBox reports). Turn off the "Bootable" flag unless you're really trying to make a bootable ZIP disk (which does work fine, by the way).

   

5. Click on "OK" to return to the main screen. The "Status" column should now read "Changed", and the button "SAVE CHANGES TO DRIVE" should now be active.
6. Click on SAVE CHANGES TO DRIVE, and exit the program. If HDToolBox reports an error when you hit 'save', and you are trying to format the Zip Tools disk, chances are it's locked. There are two ways to get around this:
   
   
   1. Use "LOW LEVEL FORMAT" on the disk, and then repeat all of the steps above.
   2. Use ZipTool (see the software section) to unlock the disk, using the password "APlaceForMyStuff" or "APlaceForYourStuff", and then repeat all of the above steps.
      
      
7. Reboot your computer.
8. When Workbench loads, you should now have a "ZIP:NDOS" icon on your Workbench (although it might say something else, depending on what you named the partition inside HDToolBox, in which case it'll be that name + :NDOS".
9. Single-click the icon, and then go up to the "Icons" pulldown menu and select "Format Disk", and proceed to let Workbench format the disk.

Walla!

• If you are having problems getting HDToolBox to run, chances are you have the wrong device ID set in the tooltype for your particular SCSI controller. There are a few ways to find out the name of the SCSI controller; Programs like Scout or Xoper can show you a list of all devices on your system and you can generally pick out which is the right one. SysInfo can also give it to you; Just click on 'DRIVES', and then choose one of your existing hard drives via the buttons on the left. Otherwise, consult your manual to find the device name. A few commons:
  
  

  GVP Controllers/Accellerators	gvpscsi.device
  Older GVP Controllers	scsidev.device
  Amiga 3000 on-board SCSI	scsi.device
  C= 2090A	hddisk.device
  Blizzard SCSI IV	1230scsi.device
  IVS Trumpcard Pro	ivs_scsi.device
  Surf Squirrel (PCMCIA)	squirrelscsi.device
  BSC Oktagon	Oktagon.device
  ICD AdSCSI	icddisk.device
  Supra SCSI	suprascsi.device
  Warp Engine on-board SCSI-II	warpdriver.device

  
  If you have any additions to this list and would like to share, please send me mail.

If you have any other questions, feel free to to send me mail. I'd be happy to try and answer any questions you have; These are great drives. And even if they kind of sucked, which I can't say that they do, it's still hard to pass up because of the cost. IOMega's got a winner.