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ZIP-drive mini-HOWTO
Grant Guenther, grant@torque.net
v1.0, 15 April 1996
The Iomega ZIP drive is a popular, removable media disk drive. It is
available in two main versions, one has a SCSI interface and the other
connects to a parallel port. This document describes how to use the
ZIP drive with Linux. It should be read in conjunction with the SCSI
HOWTO.
1. Introduction
The Iomega ZIP drive is a popular, low-cost, low-performance,
portable, removable media disk drive. Its disks have a capacity of 96
megabytes, and the drive is available in two main versions, a SCSI
version and a parallel port version. The parallel port version is
actually a SCSI device as well, configured to use Iomega's proprietary
PPA-3 SCSI-over-parallel protocol.
This document describes how to use the ZIP drive with Linux. Since
this is a SCSI device, it is important for you to read the SCSI HOWTO
as well. That document gives a thorough introduction to the Linux
SCSI system. It does not contain any specific information about the
ZIP drive, the ZIP Zoom SCSI host adapter or the PPA-3 parallel-to-
SCSI adapter. This mini-HOWTO aims to fill those gaps.
This document incorporates information collected and published by
others, in particular:
╖ Scot Wilcoxon, sewilco@fielday.mn.org
╖ Joe Mack, mack@ncifcrf.gov
╖ Byron Jeff, byron@cc.gatech.edu
I thank them for their important contributions, and accept
responsibility for any errors that I have introduced.
2. The ZIP drive
There are three versions of the Iomega ZIP 100 drive. They all accept
special cartridges resembling a 3.5" floppy disk that hold 100
megabytes of data. The disks actually hold 96 cylinders of 2048
sectors each holding 512 bytes. This would normally be called 96
Megabytes.
One version is a half-height 5.25" internal drive, with a SCSI
interface, the other two are external drives in a small blue
lightweight plastic enclosure, powered by an external wall brick. The
external drives come in a SCSI version and a parallel port version.
All the drives have a large pushbutton on the front of the drive.
This is used to eject the disk. Linux locks the door while using the
drive, but if the button is pressed while the door is locked, the ZIP
drive will remember and eject the disk as soon as the software unlocks
it.
2.1. SCSI version
The external SCSI version of the ZIP drive has two DB25F connectors,
and two configuration switches. One switch selects the drive's target
address: the choice is limited to target 5 or 6. The other enables an
internal terminator, in case the drive is the last one on a chain.
The 25 pin SCSI connectors use the familiar Macintosh style wiring.
The drive is shipped with a Macintosh type cable, but standard cables
and converters are easily obtained if you are using a host adapter
with a Centronics or high-density connector.
I have not seen an internal SCSI drive, but I would expect it to have
a standard 50 pin DIP header SCSI connector and the same two switches.
Make sure that the target address you choose does not conflict with
any other SCSI devices you may have on the same bus. Also be sure
that the physically last drive in a chain has termination enabled, or
an external terminator installed.
If you have an internal SCSI disk or CD-rom, and you connect your ZIP
drive to the existing adapter, you should check to see if there are
any terminators on the card that must be removed. Only the two
extreme ends of the SCSI bus should be terminated. If your bus is
partly internal and partly external, there should be one terminator on
the last external device and one on the last internal device, but no
terminators on the adapter card itself.
Be sure that all cables are firmly attached.
2.2. The ZIP Zoom host adapter
Iomega markets a SCSI host adapter under the name ZIP Zoom. This is
actually based on the design of the Adaptec AHA1520 family of
adapters. It has an external Macintosh type DB25F connector,
compatible with the cable that comes with the ZIP drive.
Linux supports this adapter with the aha152x driver.
2.3. Parallel port version
The parallel port ZIP drive also has two DB25 connectors, the male
(DB25M) should be connected with the supplied parallel cable to your
computer's parallel port. The other (female, DB25F) is intended to
support a chained printer. Linux does not currently support
simultaneous use of both a ZIP drive and a chained printer. A work-
around is possible using loadable modules. There are no configuration
switches.
The parallel port ZIP drive is compatible with several types of
parallel ports, but currently the Linux driver supports only the
Standard and bi-directional ports. If your parallel port has
configuration switches (in hardware or on a CMOS setup screen) be sure
to set the port into one of those two modes.
Be sure that all cables are firmly attached.
3. Configuring a kernel for the ZIP drive
To use the ZIP drive with Linux, you must have a kernel configured
with support for the SCSI system, support for SCSI disks and support
for the host adapter you are using. If you are not familiar with
building a kernel, you should go to /usr/src/linux and study the
README file found there. There is also useful information in the
Documentation subdirectory in recent versions.
You must begin the process of building a kernel with the configuration
step. Here, you identify the specific kernel components that you
need. make config is the traditional, sequential, question and answer
method of configuring the kernel.
In recent kernels there are some new alternatives: make menuconfig
does the same thing with a menu oriented interface, and make xconfig
uses the tk toolkit to provide a version that is nice to use under X.
Once you have configured your kernel, use make dep and make zLilo (or
make zImage if you don't use LILO) to compile the new kernel and
install it. And, of course, don't forget to shutdown and reboot !
You can also build all or part of the SCSI system as modules. If you
do this, be sure to load scsi.o, then sd.o and finally the driver for
your host adapter, before you try to access the ZIP drive.
3.1. SCSI version
If you already have a SCSI disk in your system, and you are connecting
the ZIP drive to the same controller, there is no additional kernel
configuration required. Otherwise, you will most likely have to build
a new kernel.
If you are building a kernel to support the SCSI version of the ZIP
drive, you should select SCSI support and SCSI disk support. You must
also select a driver for the interface card you will use. If you have
a ZIP Zoom, select the aha152x driver.
Be sure to read the documentation for your adapter in the SCSI HOWTO
and any README files in the drivers/scsi subdirectory of the Linux
source tree. Pay attention to command line parameters that you might
have to use to help the kernel initialise your adapter.
For instance, if you are using the ZIP Zoom card, you will have to add
something like
aha152x=0x340,11,7,1
to the boot command (or include it in your /etc/lilo.conf file in an
append clause). This tells the driver the port address and IRQ of
your ZIP Zoom card - be sure to use the numbers that correspond to the
way your jumpers are set.
You should also read Paul Gortmaker's BOOTPROMPT HOWTO for information
about configuring your kernel with LILO or LOADLIN.
3.2. PPA driver for 1.2.13
If you want to use the parallel port ZIP drive with the stable kernel,
version 1.2.13, you must fetch version 0.18 of the driver which is
available for anonymous ftp at <ftp://gear.torque.net/pub/ppa.c>
Installation instructions about how to compile the driver as a
loadable module are contained in the source for ppa.c.
Please note that you will almost certainly have to build a new kernel.
In particular, none of the Slackware pre-built kernels will work with
ppa. Be careful to build your kernel with SCS