Re: Iomega and Apple HS Scsi

[rubywand@aol.com]

In article <5bsc79$hnm@opal.southwind.net>, shack@onyx.southwind.net
(Randy Shackelford) writes:

The Mangler (dayen@sfsu.edu) wrote:
>
> I've been having troubles with trying to use an Iomega Zipdrive on my
gs.
> At first I thought it was a defective disk that was damaged.  Now I
> narrowed the problem to either my scsi interface or zipdrive.
>
> I talked to people that successfully used a Zipdrive with a RamFast
card.
> Is it my interface that's causing all the I/O error and damage to my
> Zipdisks?  I have one of those HS Apple Scsi cards.
>


     If, once you're sure termination power is being supplied, the drive
does not work, you may seriously 'think the unthinkable': your Zipdrive
may be defective. Try to check it out on another SCSI system (e.g. a GS
with RamFAST, a PC with SCSI, etc.).

     My first Zipdrive (ordered from Tiger) was defective. It seemed to
work well for a week or so, then, errors began to crop up on the zip
disks. ProSel was able to detect and fix some errors; but, of course, it
could not prevent the Zipdrive from re-screwing the disks later on.

     Re-formatting was the next try. RamFAST's utility did not get very
far on any of the disks. Soon, all ten of my Zip disks were trashed beyond
even being recognized by the drive. 

     I asked a PC user friend with a parallel-interface Zipdrive to check
a Zip disk by attempting a format. He reported that he could not get
anywhere with the disk and that it caused his system to crash.

     Ten bad disks?! It seemed nearly impossible; yet, there is a natural
tendency to reject the notion that ones Zipdrive is bad. I called Tiger to
arrange return of the disks. Tiger agreed to take back the disks even
though the usual 30-day-since-purchase period had expired.

     Still, something did not 'smell right'. (Ten bad disks, especially
since some seemed okay at first, really is pretty unbelievable.)  Before
returning the disks, I decided to get Iomega's PC SCSI interface and darn
well give my drive the acid test on our '486.

     For starters, it took nearly half and hour of stops/starts/re-reads
for the Zip utilities to install on the PC. Incredibly (in retrospect), it
did finish. However, formatting anything was out of the question.

     The cat was out of the bag. The Zipdrive had done its best to bomb
installation of software from the Zip utilities disk-- a disk not included
in the 10-disk package. Obviously, the Zipdrive was defective. Most
likely, the disks from the 10-disk pack were okay.

     So, how come the PC user friend could not format the disk on his
system? It turns out that he had misunderstood my request. He had tried to
read and write to the disk; he had not tried a format! When, after the
above test, he did try a format, the disk formatted just fine. It was time
to call Tiger.

     The Tiger rep (a different guy) said that, since the 30-day return
period had expired (by about three weeks),  I would have to contact Iomega
and get authorization to return the drive to them.

     Bad news! Iomega is very difficult to contact person-to-person. Users
can get a faxed copy of the return request form, fill it out and fax it to
Iomega, and wait for a faxed authorization. I did get the faxed form; but,
upon considering the kind of delays likely to be involved in getting a
replacement drive, I decided to call Tiger again.

     Another different rep answered. He, too, informed me that the 30-day
return period had expired. This time I noted that returning the drive to
Iomega would be a lot of hassle and, happily, the rep said "okay" and gave
me a return authorization number for Tiger's warehouse! (... which
demonstrates the _big_ difference between dealing with a computer and
dealing with a person. People are smart enough to break rules.)

     Fortunately, the original box and packaging had not been discarded.
Off went the stuff to Tiger. Within a week, the replacement arrived.

     The replacement drive works like a champ! So far, about half of the
bombed disks have been reformatted, all without a hitch. The Zipdrive is,
at last, living up to its reviews. 

     As for my $50 investment in Iomega's PC SCSI card, it's kind of nice
to be able to plug in the Zip and dump big PC files to a disk. (By the
way, Zipdrive is very speedy running from the PC SCSI interface.)


     So much for my not-so-horrible horror story. (Well, it seemed pretty
horrible for a while; but, Tiger 'did good' and things worked out fine.) 
Some of the above may be helpful.

     Iomega is selling piles of Zipdrives; so, it is not too surprising
that some bad drives are getting past quality control. Try to get a check
on your Zipdrive fairly soon.


Rubywand