Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By anish108 Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:42 pm
Hi Guys


I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to find an answer on the forum to this problem I'm having but to no avail. Apologies in advance, as I'm a noob and any help would be much appreciated.

I have an SCSI iomega 100 zip drive which is connected to my MPC 3000. I tried to format the iomega Zip 100 MB disk I bought off ebay on the mpc and every time I try to do so (Disk, 9, 3) I get the message "Hard disk format failure". I know people have come across this problem before, but what could it be due to?

I don't think its the zip disk as it was a brand new unopened one, and when I use my USB iomega Zip 750 which is connected to my computer to try and read the disk, my computer recognises the disk together with its contents (at least, I think it does as I can see the PC/MAC iomega zip formatting programs that are on the disk).

My SCSI drive seems to be working as it says on the mpc when i turn it on "Searching SCSI for hard disk".

Would the Operating System on the MPC have anything to do with it too? I have OS 3.08.

Any ideas what the problem is? I spent close to £35 on a USB zip drive and zip disks and am now seriously considering switching to CF card readers!

Thanks again
By anish108 Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:55 pm
although just noticed that when i open the zip drive with the iomega tools program on my mac, it says "No disk" when i click on info (even though the 100 MB zip disk is inserted into the USB zip drive). Could it be the disk then?
By Clint Wed Nov 14, 2012 12:28 am
What is the model number written on your SCSI zip drive?
By Clint Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:10 am
anish108 wrote:Sure. Its model number is Z100S2


That good, so we know it's not a parallel version.

OK, can you test that ZIP drive on any other SCSI devices to confirm that it actually works? Gotta try and isolate the source of this problem, it could be the actual drive, the Zip disc or the MPC.

To be honest, I wouldnt waste too much time on it, get a card reader and be done with the headaches. You be better off in the long run.
By deepah84 Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:56 am
When i had my mpc i didn't have the SCSI cable with the zip drive, so i bought a sub d 25 cable in a computer store. The MPC was never able to set the number of partitions at the end of the formating process. I bought a Iomega cable on ebay and then never had a problem.