I need a logic check. I have this situation and stuff:

1. A number of old 100MB Zip disks that I would like to see for possible data transfer.

2. A Zip drive (Model Z100ATAPI) removed from my daughter's old G4.

3. A Universal drive Adapter

4. An 80G HD removed from a blown up G5. I use this HD for my Super Duper clones.

5. I am unable to find any Zip drivers that will work with my OSX 10.6.6/iMac

6. Iomega says that drivers are not needed for OSX 4 or OSX 5 and that a Zip drive should just mount on the desktop.

7. The Iomega driver site says "unsupported" for Zip 100 ATAPI/IDE Internal.


The logic check is needed for this idea:

1. Erase my 80G HD and install either 10.4 or 10.5

2. Boot from the 80G HD using the older system

3. Hook up the UDA and expect to see the Zip drive appear.

ryck

Device drivers are very seldom needed in OS X, in fact I have never heard of a driver being needed for external Zip or floppy drives and Mac OS X 10.6 Help implies that no driver is needed for either.

If your iMac shipped with OS X 10.4 or OS X 10.5 you could install the version that came with your iMac on the 80GB drive and boot from it, but if the Zip drive does not mount with OS X 10.6, I would be surprised if it will mount with 10.5 or 10.4.

I suspect the problem is hardware rather than software related.

• SInce this is an ATA drive, the problem may be the jumper settings on the Zip drive (it would need to be jumpered as Master).
• Was there a disk in the drive when you tried to mount it? If not try that.
• Did you open Disk Utility or System Profiler to see if the system is "seeing" the drive at all?
• If Disk Utility sees the drive and there is a disk in it did you try to force the disk to mount using DU?

There are six pins and two scheme for Masters. Jumper the right set of pins for Master. Jumper both the right and the middle sets for something called Master A.

I have tried with both jumper schemes.


I tried with a disk in the drive prior to applying power as well as inserting a disk after powered up. In both cases you could hear the drive expose the floppy and read (I assume it was reading).


The drive could not be seen by Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, or System Profiler.

ryck

SInce it does not work with either jumper setting, that shoots down my pet theory and easiest solution.

The drive spinning up means it is getting power for what that is worth.

Before going much further I would find a friend with a PC — I am assuming you don't have Windows installed on your Mac — install the drivers, if necessary, and see if the PC can see your drive configuration. The PC won't be able to "read" the data on the drive unless the disks were formatted MS-DOS (Fat16 or 32) but at least you would know your hardware configuration works. If the PC cannot see it either then it is a pretty safe assumption you have hardware issues of some kind. It could be the drive itself, the universal adaptor, or the connecting cable(s).

PC? I won't catch anything will I? Don't worry, I'll wash my hands afterward.


I tend not to think UDA or cables as I've just used them for the two hard drives and they were fine. I'll check with my daughter to see if the Zip was working before....although my suspicion is that she didn't use it.

ryck

PS: My 10.4 disks wouldn't install. I got a dialogue that said something along the lines of "can't be installed on this computer"....and that was with the machine booted from the Super Duper clone drive.

> My 10.4 disks wouldn't install. I got a dialogue that said something along the lines of "can't be installed on this computer"....and that was with the machine booted from the Super Duper clone drive.


Edited by ryck (03/09/11 08:44 PM)
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iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz
Chances are that y Your 10.4 disc pre-dates the OS with which your Mac shipped; Macs cannot boot from such discs.

True enough. I just dug up the grey install disks and they're 10.5.4

ryck

I have here a zip100/usb sealed in box here...
and a (HD) usb floppy in same condition.

I wonder if my $800 FWB HammerJaz still works.

Good thought, and thank-you for the idea...but hang on to it for now. I'd like to make sure I've covered all bases before acquiring something that would likely have only a one-time use.

My daughter advises the drive worked fine before she dropped off the G4 so I have one more option - drag the G4 back to her place next time I visit, and hook it up to her monitor. That'd at least have the drive talking to a system it knows.

Meanwhile, I sure would like to get to the bottom of why it doesn't want to talk to my iMac. I'm starting to think it just doesn't like Leopards.

When 10.4 wouldn't install on my backup drive I tried 10.5 and it did install. However, it didn't want to talk to the drive.

ryck