Archive-name: apple2/faq/part23
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 2009/02/01
URL: http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs1START.html


The Csa2 (comp.sys.apple2) Usenet newsgroup Apple II FAQs and Resource
 files originate from the II Computing site, 1997-2009.

Csa2 FAQs-on-Ground ref: Csa2ZIPTF.txt  rev131 February 2009







Zip Drives & Tape


 001- What is a "Zip drive"?
 002- What is a "Zip disk"?
 003- What do I need in order to use a Zip drive?
 004- What kind of SCSI interface card do I need?
 005- How do I install a Zip drive?
 006- How do I get started using the Zip drive?
 007- How does Zip Drive speed compare with a hard disk's speed?
 008- Can I use Zip disks to transfer files to/from other computers?
 009- Will forgetting to set the termination switch cause damage?
 010- How does Zip Drive perform with an Apple HS SCSI card?
 011- Is a CMS SCSI card adequate for connecting a Zip drive?
 012- Which SCSI interface works best with a Zip Drive?
 013- Will I be able to format and partition a Zip disk?
 014- Should I let the Finder handle formatting of new Zip disks?
 015- Can I format a Zip disk for HFS?
 016- The disk in my Zip Drive is not recognized. How come?
 017- I added SCSI; now, my 3.5" drives often fail to work. Why?
 018- Why do I get this "Ramfast/SCSI is searching SCSI bus" msg?
 019- What's a good utility for doing tape backups on the GS?
 020- What's needed to add a SCSI Tape backup unit?
 021- What about tape backup on a IIe?
 022- Does Apple's Hi-Speed SCSI card allow swapping Zip disks?
 023- What can I do after the Zip on my Apple SCSI "sleeps"?
 024- What is the "Click of Death"? Is there a fix?
 025- What is a "Qic" tape? A friend needs to read a Qic-80 tape.
 026- How do I restart my HS SCSI + Zip when the Zip deactivates?






Zip Q&A 001-008 info mainly from the 1996 II Alive review by Eric Dietrich

001- What is a "Zip drive"?

     The typical Zip drive is a 100MB removable media system. Cobalt blue
in color, the popular external drive is compact and light-- about the same
size as the newer external modems. The 100s "SCSI Zip" connects
to the any computer with a SCSI port including the Apple IIgs or IIe
equipped with a SCSI interface card.

     The Zip drive is made by Iomega. Price for the 100MB external model is
around $130. This includes the drive, cable, information sheets, one disk
with "Zip Tools", and a 3.5" installation diskette. (The
material on the zip disk is PC/Mac compatible and the diskette is for
MS-DOS. This stuff will come in handy should you wish to be able to use
your Zip drive on a PC with a SCSI port or on a Mac. None of the software
is required for using the Zip Drive on an Apple II.)

----------------------------


From: David Wilson

     Below is updated information on available Zip Drive models:

100MB Zip Drive models now include ...
 External- parallel, SCSI, "Plus" (SCSI/parallel), usb
 Internal- SCSI, IDE, and three ATAPI drives

250MB Zip Drive models include ...
 External- parallel, SCSI, usb
 Internal- ATAPI

----------------------------


002- What is a "Zip disk"?

     A Zip drive disk is a cartridge just a bit larger and thicker than the
familiar 3.5" floppy diskette with a smaller shutter and no physical
write- protect mechanism. It is rated as among the more rugged
moderately-high- density removable disks.

     100MB disks sell for around $10. 250MB disks sell for around $20.

----------------------------


003- What do I need to use a Zip drive?

     You need an Apple IIgs or Enhanced IIe and a SCSI interface card.

----------------------------


004- What kind of SCSI interface card do I need?

     There are three 'popular' options: The Apple Revision C, The Apple Hi-
Speed, and the RamFAST. The Revision C is older and a bit slower because it
does not utilize direct memory access (DMA), a feature that the Hi-Speed
and RamFAST have. The Apple cards are no longer made or supported; but, you
may be able to buy one at a swap meet.

     The Sequential Systems RamFAST has DMA plus an on-board cache of
either 256kB or 1MB, making it the fastest interface available. RamFAST has
a full set of utilities in ROM, so, it's easy to set up, too.

----------------------------


From: Willie Yeo

     Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card users need to remember that these cards
normally do not supply termination power. (RamFAST does; but, not the Apple
Hi- Speed SCSI card.)  To work properly with the GS, a Zip drive connected
to the Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card requires either another device that can
supply termination power, or requires a hardware hack on the Apple Hi-Speed
SCSI card to provide the termination power.

Note: The Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card termination power modification is
detailed in the Hard Drive and SCSI FAQs (file Csa2HDNSCSI.txt).

----------------------------


005- How do I install a Zip drive?

     The main Zip installation step is plugging it in. The drive uses DB-25
connectors and, so, most likely, the cable will plug directly into your
interface card with no need for an adapter. In case you need an adapter for
an older 50-pin plug, these can be obtained from Alltech.

     If you already have other SCSI devices, the one currently plugged into
the interface can plug into the Zip. Or, the Zip can be plugged into a hard
disk, CD-ROM, etc. at any point in the chain of SCSI devices.


Set SCSI ID Number-  Every hard disk, CD-ROM drive, etc. on your SCSI chain
needs its own ID number (0-7). While most devices are flexible and will
allow you to choose any available ID, Zip gives you a choice of two: 5 or
6. If you are using an Apple Hi-Speed card and you already have a hard
disk, you'll have to set the Zip to 5 in order to continue to boot off of
your hard disk (which needs to be 6). The RamFAST is somewhat more flexible
in that it doesn't take ID 7 for itself and will allow you to boot f

rom any SCSI device.


Set Termination-  Another consideration is termination. If all you have
connected to your SCSI card is the Zip Drive, then you should set the
switch on the back to turn ON the termination. If you have other devices
that come after the Zip, then you should set it to OFF. (Actually, the Zip
presents a light termination load and can be left with termination ON
whether or not it is the last device.)  The last device in the chain (the
one farthest from the interface) should always have termination set ON.

     Hardware-wise, that's it. In all likelihood, your setup will work
fine. If not, you can get help from experts at Alltech, post a question on
comp.sys.apple2, or, even, read the documentation that came with your SCSI
card (when all else fails ...).

----------------------------


006- How do I get started using the Zip drive?

     Once your drive is connected, its time to start your machine and
prepare a Zip disk for use. The Advanced Disk Utility (on a IIgs) or the
utility that came with your SCSI card can do formatting and set up
partitions (i.e. create named "Volumes"). Usually, with new
for-PC Disks, just partitioning is required for use under ProDOS. Each
100MB disk can hold three max-size (32MB) ProDOS partitions.

     If your interface is a RamFAST rev. D 3.01f or later model, you will
be able to treat Zip disks much like large floppies. They will mount and
unmount properly in the GS Finder, etc..

     Most other interface cards will want to treat your Zip Drive and disk
like a hard disk. This is because the cards were designed before removable
high-density R/W media became popular. You may be able to swap in a disk
after booting; but, the new disk is likely to be treated as though it is
the disk which was present during power-up. This could lead to messed-up
partitions, lost files, and other problems. With such interface cards, the
safe way to swap Zip disks is to turn OFF the computer.

----------------------------


007-How does Zip Drive speed compare with a hard disk speed?

     Iomega claims 29ms average access time, which is slower than modern
hard disks but, still, very speedy.

----------------------------


008- Can I use Zip disks to transfer files to/from other computers?

Mac--> IIgs

     Yes. However, Macs put a driver on the disk as well as a partition
map. Both look like partitions to the IIgs. Since the IIgs can't read them,
it will ask you to format or eject. Here's a trick you can try: When you
insert a Mac- formatted Zip, just click "eject" until the disk
mounts. The IIgs will then ignore the extra Mac stuff, and mount just the
legitimate volume(s). (E. D.)

----------------------------


From: Supertimer

Mac  IIgs

     Shared HFS GS/Mac disks should be formatted on the IIGS because the
IIGS tends to provide a format that is acceptable to both platforms while
the Mac tends to ignore the needs of the IIGS.

     Besides the standard Apple Disk Utility (ADU), you will need GenEx.
GenEx extracts the generic Mac SCSI driver from ADU's resource fork and
puts it into the IIGS' drivers folder. Thus, when ADU looks in that folder,
it finds and installs the driver and does not give the "no mac driver
found" error. You can download GenEx (GenEx.shk) and info
(GenEx.shk.txt) from Ground at ...

http://www.apple2.org.za/mirrors/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/upl98/Feb98/ .


     Once you get GenEx, use the following procedure to prepare Zip disks:

o- Go to the Apple Advanced Disk Utility (ADU) on the IIgs and select
Partition Drive. Delete all the partitions except one and resize that one
partition to fill up the entire drive. Click on the button to repartition
the drive. At this point, ADU will ask you if you want to low level format
and warn you that it is going to take a long time.  Click on Yes.

o- ADU will wipe the drive. By doing it this way, you are giving ADU a
clean slate to install the GenericMacSCSI driver onto the drive.

o- Finally, initialize the HFS volume.

Surprise, the new Zip disk works on both the IIGS and Mac without annoying errors!


----------------------------


From: John Holmes and Tarage

PC--> IIgs (also, maybe, IIgs--> PC and PC  Mac)

     DataViz sells a product called MacOpener 2000 for machines running
Windows that actually allows you to use all HFS formats, except for
400K/800K floppies, on your PC while running Windows. This goes not only
for reading the media but also writing and formatting as well.

     I put a zip disk in my Parallel Port Zip drive on my PC and formatted
it HFS and copied some of the //gs software I had downloaded. It worked on
my IIgs (equipped with a SCSI zip 250 drive) like a charm!


----------------------------


From: Supertimer and Rubywand

PCIIgs

     You can use MUG! to R/W MS-DOS formatted Zip disks. Mug! (mug101.bxy)
along with an info file is on Ground at ...

http://www.apple2.org.za/mirrors/ground.icaen.uiowa.edu/apple16/System/Ndas/ .

     MUG! is an NDA (New Desk Accessory) which must be started from the
'Apple menu' (click on the Apple symbol) available at the top of a typical
GS 'desktop'-type display.

     One thing to be aware of is that MUG! should be used from an
application other than Finder (the usual main GS "desktop
display").  The Finder and many other applications will do a drive
check, find the MS-DOS Zip disk, and respond with something like:
"Installed FSTs do not recognize disk, do you wish to format it or
eject it?".

     MUG! seems to work fine when selected from Platinum Paint or PMPUnZip.
(If you start from Platinum Paint, be sure to go to 640 mode first in order
to be able to see the entire MUG! display.)  PMPUnZip is, probably, your
best bet because it is a relatively small program.      Once, say, PMPUnZip
is started, you can insert your PC Zip MS-DOS Zip disk and start MUG!.
Setting the Copy option to "to GS/OS", I copied several .shk,
.wav, and .jpg files from the Zip Disk to /RAM5 RAM disk with no problem.


____________________________



From: Rubywand

009- Sometimes I forget to set the termination switch correctly
     after using my Zip drive on another machine. Will this damage
     anything?

     If you normally connect your Zip drive somewhere in the middle of your
Apple II SCSI chain and forget to turn OFF termination, it probably does no
harm. The Zip is said to have rather "weak" termination-- i.e.
its termination resistors present a relatively light load. This may explain
why GS users report no data loss problems on Zip or other devices when Zip
is located in the middle of a SCSI chain with termination set to ON.

     If your Zip drive is normally connected at the end of your Apple II
SCSI chain and you forget to set it to ON, there is a decent chance of Zip
drive Read and Write errors.

____________________________



From: The Mangler

010- How does Zip Drive perform with an Apple HS SCSI card?

I had many problems when I first started with the Iomega Zip on my GS and
it isn't the most reliable thing - But it works.

1.) Make sure that the Zipdrive is hooked directly to your HS Apple SCSI card.

2.) Chain your Zipdrive to the external HD which you will be using.

3.) Attach a terminator adapter to the back of the remaining port on your
external HD - The Zipdrive has a weak termination and requires another
terminator source.

As for getting your GS to recognize the Zipdrive in all applications:

1.) Turn on your Zipdrive

2.) Turn on your external HD

3.) Turn on the GS

4.) Put the Zipdisk in the drive before GSOS is booted so that it may be
scanned and recognized.

Last, if you are working on the GS for a long time and suddenly the
Zipdrive Icons don't pop up when you load Finder, simply eject the zipdisk
and push it back into the drive.

____________________________



From: Sloopy Malibu

011- Is a CMS SCSI interface card adequate for connecting a Zip drive?

     I have had a Zip Drive hooked to a CMS SCSI card (1990 ROM) for 2-3
years in my IIgs without a hitch. Basically you just go into the setup for
the CMS card. It will partition the drive into 32 meg sections which you
can access two at a time-- It makes three on a Zip disk. Then once GS/OS is
booted it tells you that the disk is unreadable and asks if you want it
formatted and you hit ok for each virtual drive and there you have it. (I
never tried formatting it with HFS since I didn't need a partition l

arger than 32megs.)

     The one thing to remember is DON'T EJECT THE DISK while booted. Go to
shutdown first and, when it tells you to shut it off, then change disks.

----------------------------


From: David Empson

     I would strongly discourage using the CMS card.  It is designed to
work with CMS hard drives. I don't know how well it can handle removable
SCSI devices; and, it might not be able to handle more than 64 MB. So even
if you can get the card to work with the ZIP drive, you may not be able to
access all of the disk.

     Another problem is that the CMS card doesn't support the standard
partitioning scheme used by other Apple II SCSI cards.  It uses a set of
jumpers on the card to configure the partition sizes, and doesn't support
the partition map mechanism at all.  In other words, it uses "hard
partitioning".

     See if you can get hold of an Apple or RamFast SCSI card, which follow
all the standards as far as partitioning goes.

____________________________



From: Rubywand

012- Which SCSI interface works best with a Zip Drive?

     Your best choice is the version 3.01f RamFAST.  Along with good speed,
Direct Memory Access support, and on-ROM utilities, you also get an
interface which permits ejecting a Zip disk and mounting a new Zip disk
from the System 6 Finder. (There is no need to restart the system in order
to swap disks.)

     The RamFAST 3.01f also supports a variety of CD-ROM drives and hard disk drives.

----------------------------


From: Supertimer

     The same can be said of the Apple High Speed SCSI. With a partitioned
Zip disk (or CD-ROM), you have to lasso or shift-click to highlight all the
partitions and drag them to the trash to eject the disk. (As long as one
partition remains on the desktop, the disk stays in.)  There is no need to
turn off the computer to swap disks. The interface is a bit slower than
RamFAST. However, it actually supports MORE hard disk drives than the
RamFAST.

----------------------------


From: David Empson

     The problem with non-support of removable devices only applies to the
original Apple SCSI card, not the high-speed one, and even then it only
applies underProDOS-8. You just need to be careful not to switch disks
without rebooting, because it won't realize that a new disk (potentially
with different partitioning) is in the drive.

____________________________



From: Rubywand

013- Will I be able to format and partition a Zip disk using the
     standard 6.0.1 tools disk?

     Yes.

     If you have a RamFAST, you also have the option of using the RamFAST
utilities. These are on ROM on the RamFAST board. They should be copied to
disk or hard disk and run from there. RAMFAST.SYSTEM will handle ProDOS
partitioning and low-level formatting.

     Since Zip disks are already formatted, you will, mainly, be concerned
with setting up partitions. On a 100MB Zip disk, the best partitioning is
three 32MB ProDOS volumes. Setting up partitions takes less than a minute.
A low-level reformat of a 100MB Zip disk may take 10 minutes or more.

____________________________



From: Rubywand

014- Should I just let the System Finder handle formatting of
     new Zip disks?

     If you are at the usual System Desktop display and insert a new,
"blank" Zip disk, you will be told that the disk's format is not
recognized and asked if you want to have it formatted. Assuming you want
ProDOS volumes or multiple HFS volumes, you should answer "NO":

A new Zip disk is already formatted; what you need is to have it
partitioned-- good, because partitioning takes about 30 seconds whereas a
format takes 9-10 minutes.

ProDOS is limited to 32,768kB ("32MB") per partition. The Finder
does not know how to correctly format and partition a 100MB ProDOS disk.

Reminder: If you want a disk to be able to boot ProDOS or any version of
GS/OS (as in System 6.0.1), at least the first partition must be formatted
for ProDOS.

----------------------------


From: Supertimer

     I say "Yes", _if_ you want one big HFS-formatted Zip disk.
(Unlike ProDOS, HFS allows volumes larger than 32MB.) Letting the Finder
format the Zip disk for HFS gives you a 96MB (partition-table-less)
"diskette" that's faster than one that has been partitioned, even
if the partition = the whole disk.

     The "partitionless" HFS volume generated by formatting PC
Zip disks from the Finder behaves just like a floppy and ejects and mounts
like one (but with a hard disk icon).

____________________________



From: Rubywand

015- Can I format a Zip disk for HFS; and, can HFS and ProDOS
     volumes exist on the same Zip disk?

     Yes. System 6 with HFS.FST in the SYSTEM/FSTS folder supports Read,
Write, Formatting, and Partitioning of HFS disks. The standard Apple
Advanced Disk Utilities (ADU) program lets you set up a Zip disk as a
single 100MB HFS volume or divide it into partitions.

Note: A "partition" is a "volume". In most respects,
partitions on a Hard Disk or Zip disk are treated like separate disks. Each
partition has its own volume name and appears on the System Finder display
with its own icon.

     You can, if you like, have ProDOS and HFS partitions on the same Zip
disk. One easy way to do this is to set up, say, three ProDOS partitions
and, then, have ADU "Initialize" a partition as HFS. If you want
to be able to boot from the Zip disk, at least the first partition must be
ProDOS.

----------------------------


016- Often, when I power-ON my computer, the disk in my Zip Drive
     is not recognized. What's the problem?

     Almost immediately after power-up, your SCSI interface begins checking
for devices. Most likely, the problem is that your SCSI interface checks
the Zip Drive before it is ready and decides no disk is present.

     The cure is to put your Zip Drive, CD-ROM drive, etc. on a separate
power line. These devices should be switched ON 5-10 seconds before
powering- ON the computer. If you depend upon reading SCSI setup
information from your Zip Drive-- like, if it is the only write-able device
on the SCSI chain-- then a Zip disk on which the setup info has been saved
should be inserted after the drive is switched ON and before powering-ON
the computer.

----------------------------


017- Sometimes the 3.5" drives on my GS do not function correctly.
     This started after adding a SCSI interface card. Is there
     a fix?

     This problem seems to crop up from time to time when a SCSI interface
is present, especially when no device is connected and recognized on the
SCSI chain. Evidently, something (e.g. a register or softswitch) in the
usual GS power-up routine relating to on-line devices gets messed up.

     Inserting a 3.5" diskette into Drive 1 before or just after
power-up usually forces recognition of 3.5" diskette drives and
enables correct functioning.

____________________________



From: LJ Silicon

018- I get this message 'Ramfast/SCSI is searching the SCSI bus for
     devices..etc.'  Never had this problem before-- only does it
     on a cold boot.

     When you reinstalled the software, the RAMFast set itself for a long
search. This is an option that you can change using the RAMFast utility.
What it is doing is giving your scsi devices a chance to spin up. If you
want a fast check, go to the options menu on the utilities and reset the
Short Timeout option there to "YES".

____________________________



From: Dan Brown, KE6MKS

019- What's a good utility for doing tape backups on the GS?

     Here follows an unpaid testimonial:  The Tim Grams GS desktop SCSI
backup utility called "GSTape" works great! I got it for an old
Apple Tape 40SC, did several backup/restores, and then ran across a 2GB DAT
drive. Yep, it worked with no problems, too!  (-:

----------------------------


From: Devin Reade

     As one of those very satisfied customers, I testify that for someone
with a SCSI tape drive, GSTape is very much worth the money.  It is
reliable and simple to operate in both backup and restore mode.  It has an
appropriate script capability and, although I have not used this feature,
it allows timed backups (so that you don't have to be present).

     It is _much_ better than the RAMFast built-in tape backup program.  I
currently use it to backup both SCSI and Vulcan (IDE) hard drives.

____________________________



From: Phil Abel

020- I have a IIgs ROM01 with system 6.0 and I am trying to add a
     SCSI Tape backup unit. I have an Apple Hi-Speed SCSI card
     and 2 drives connected currently. The tape drive is off an old
     unix box. I have the ID set to 3. I loaded the system 6.0 SCSI
     tape driver but nothing showed up on the desktop. What's wrong?

     I have recently gone thru this dilemma myself... First of all, I
believe that the GS driver is partial to the 3M mechanism as found in the
Apple SC40 tape unit. I tried a Tecmar drive (whatever mechanism that is)
on my GS, and though it recognized the drive on boot as a SCSI device, when
I went into archiver to try to back something up it didn't acknowledge the
drive's presence, although the SCSITAPE device showed up in GS/OS. I later
found a good deal on an SC40 and hooked it up and it works perfectl

y, though I am still curious about making the Tecmar work, though I doubt it will.

#1. I have read that you should set the SCSI ID on a tape drive to 0
(lowest priority) if this will help any... this seemed to eliminate
annoying searching of the tape drive on boot.

#2. Another thing-- The tape drive will NOT show up on the System desktop.
It does not work like a regular drive. You need a special program (aka
Archiver in GSOS or I believe there are some 8 bit programs, too) that
knows how to store files on the tape.

     Open Advanced Disk Utilities when in GSOS and see if the SCSITAPE unit
is present-- then you will know the drive was identified ok. Then the next
test-- see if you can backup. Open  archiver, set your "backup
to..." device as SCSITAPE and hit start.

     When the thing says "insert first backup tape" you insert a
tape and hit OK. If it starts giving you errors or repeating the message,
then GS/OS doesn't like your tape unit. If it works... then go out for a
pizza or something while the thing whiles away at your files. Try
recovering selected files after the backup to make sure the archive went ok
so you can begin trusting in your tape backups.

----------------------------


From: Bill Harris

     The device number (other than being unique) should not be relevent to
backing up to tape.  I've always used something in the middle range of
numbers for my tape, typically id 3 or 4.  This included when I  was still
using the RF prom for backup.

----------------------------


From: Rubywand

     RamFAST has a Backup function you can get to via Ramfast.system.

     You need to have the "HD Backup" option under the [O]ptions
menu set to "No" in order to use tape (instead of something like
a Zip Drive) for backup. Then, you can select [B]ackup from the main menu
bar.

     Regarding the SCSI device number setting, 3 may be fine on a RamFAST.
Probably, you would want to remove any Apple drivers named "SCSI
..." from the DRIVERS/ folder to eliminate possible conflicts with the
Ramfast driver.

____________________________



From: Glynne Tolar

021- What about tape backup on a IIe?

     The RamFAST has built-in volume image backup software (in background).
The only backup software I know of for the //e for tape drives is by Tim
Grams and it only works with an Apple Rev. C SCSI and the Apple Tape Backup
40SC (3m MCD-40). This software is no longer supported though.

____________________________



From: Supertimer

022- I've heard that Apple's Hi-Speed SCSI card does not
     allow swapping Zip disks without turning OFF the computer.
     Is this true?

     No. The Apple Hi-Speed SCSI interface allows ejecting and swapping
removable disks. With a partitioned Zip disk (or CD-ROM), you have to lasso
or shift-click to highlight all the partitions and drag them to the trash
to eject the disk. (As long as one partition remains on the desktop, the
disk stays in.) There is no need to turn off the computer to swap disks.

____________________________



From: Gareth Jones

023- What can I do after the Zip drive connected to my Apple SCSI
     goes into Sleep Mode?

     A solution is "goosing" the drive by manually ejecting and
reinserting it. Apparently, using the SCSI driver for the Apple Card that
was sold by Tulin Technologies solves a lot of troubles with the Apple card
and a Zip drive. You can get the Tulin SCSI driver from Mr. Wing Chung
(104465.3171{at}COMPUSERVE.COM) for $20.

____________________________



From: From: Tony Cianfaglione

024- What is the "Click of Death"? Is there a fix?

     Your drive starts to make repeated clicking sounds and soon fails.
Disks in a drive which Clicks may be corrupted and, if placed in a good
drive, may cause a good drive to start Clicking.

     If your Zip drive starts to do noticeable clicking, the standard
advice is to immediately eject the disk or, if this is not possible, turn
OFF power to the drive (or pull out the power connector on the side of the
drive).  This may save the drive if the disk is bad or save the disk if the
drive has gone bad.

     The reason for click death is that the lube on the two tiny square
rails that the head assembly travels back and forth on dries out!
(Evidently, Iomega's earlier machines used better quality lube than that
used in some later production runs.)

     When the head assembly can no longer reach track 0, the drive thinks
it's there so it writes track 0 elsewhere on the disk.  Later, when even
that track 0 can't be found, the drive beats itself to death trying to find
track 0.  This is why click death disks can damage a good drive as the
drives beat themselves to death trying to read track 0 on the bad disk.
I've successfully repaired the drives by opening them up and relubing the
rails with a good lube.

     I've had success with repairing the directories on disks destroyed by
'click death' drives.  I'd tried reformatting the disks on Win95 and 98
machines but the format utility (even long format with verify) gives up too
quickly and reports the disk is either locked or damaged.  Scandisk refuses
to even look at the disks and reports there is something wrong with them.

     Using the Win3.1 guiutil.exe on an old 486, I was able to reformat
thedisks and they now work fine on all the various machines I've tried them
on. This may work with internal drives too but I use my good external
parallel drive and click on the drive icon and select format from the menu.
When the disk starts to click, press eject and a message will appear that
the disk has a format and would you like to continue formatting with
verify.

     Re-inject the disk, select continue and the format/verify will run for
9 minutes and 27 seconds, successfully repairing the disk every time I've
tried it this way (I've repaired 23 disks so far by this method including a
couple my friend was ready to throw out as he had tried just about
everything - even a Mac).  Scandisk will even verify the disk is fine and
I've had no further problems with any of the disks repaired in this manner.
Is the older version a better program?  I think it's that the Win3.1

 guiutil.exe doesn't scrutinize the disks as much as the later versions do
and simply does the deed, which is the best way.

     This method shouldn't work either but it does. Give it a try before
heaving your disks. I constantly use the repaired disks and have never had
a repeat failure with them.

Note: There is no guarantee that every drive or disk can be repaired as
described above. Some drives or disks may be too badly trashed.

Download guiutil.exe at ... 
http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Utils/ClickOfDthFix_guiutil.zip

____________________________



From: Scott Alfter

025- What is a "Qic" tape? A friend needs to read a Qic-80 tape.

     QIC-80 is a format, not a brand or a specifier of capacity.
Uncompressed capacity for tapes in this format range from 60 megs (DC2120)
to 250 megs (TR-1 Extra).  It was preceded by QIC-40 and has since been
superseded by QIC-3010, QIC-3020, and QIC-3095 (the latter format delivers
4 gigabytes (uncompressed) on a TR-4 tape, and is available in SCSI and IDE
flavors for fast operation).

     I'm not sure what format the 40-meg tape drive Apple used to sell
used...it might've been QIC-80 with a shorter tape (they use DC2000 tapes),
but it was probably different.  I've never had one. For my GS, the tape
drive I currently use is an Archive Viper 60S (QIC-24 format, SCSI
interface, puts 60 megs on a DC600 cartridge).

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From: Supertimer

026- How do I restart my HS SCSI + Zip when the Zip deactivates?

     The problem is with the Apple SCSI driver. The Zip drive normally
deactivates itself after a period of time to conserve energy. The Apple
SCSI driver fails to reactivate the Zip when the IIGS tries to access it.
If this happens in some programs, data can get corrupted. If it happens in
the Finder, the Finder will ask you if you want to format the Zip disk.

     You can reacivate your Zip by hitting the eject button and pushing the
Zip disk back into the drive after it has ejected. People call this
"goosing" the Zip drive. It works and reactivates the Zip.

     One complete fix is to replace the Apple SCSI driver with the Tulin
one. Some former Tulin employee on Compuserve sells it for $20.

_________________________



Credits

Stecial Thanks to ...

FAQs 'Local' site managers and support

Steve Nelson  Ground ISCA AppleII Librarian 
David Funk  Ground Engineering
Charles "Dr. Tom" Turley  GS WorldView
Ronald Clark  Apple II Help Page
Michael Maginnis  Tarnover
Greg Wildman  apple2.org.za
Warren Stramiello  White Rabbit mirrors
and to David Alex Lamb and the news.answers team
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32