2kxl zip drive help

hey folks, got a help question. i recently had an internal zip drive die on one of my XL's. after i swapped it, the machine will boot, but i get a "wait" screen that lasts FOREVER. it will literally take about 90 seconds to cycle thru recognizing the memory, and then landing at the home screen. i've tried both slave positions of the jumpers, and have tried 2 drives, so it's gotta be upstream of the drives it seems.

any ideas what would do this? i even tried re-installing os 1.2, and still-no luck....thanks-rj

Not much of a solution for fixing it but I would ditch the Zip & go for a Card Reader. The Adonics one does the job pretty wel ( I bought mine for $25) Just my two cents.

It probably means that the Zip is going to die soon too.
So yeah... Get that card reader.

Try turning the auto load off.

i'll try the autoload thing.

thanks for the help guys, but the card reader is a bit more problematic. i have 3 of these machines, and they all have zip drives. so i can work and swap easily. so if i were to move over to card readers, i'd have to do it on all 3, and then transfer 10+yrs worth of disks to cards. seems pretty labor intensive....


it can't be the drive "about to die". i have likely killed more zip drives and replaced them than anyone on this forum. not once do they warn before giving up the ghost. plus, it does the same thing on 2 brand new drives, so it cant be the drive.

What you should consider is to get an external Zip and put a CF reader in the 2k.
That would take care of all your needs while keeping compatibility.

does anyone know the jumper settings for the addonics CF card reader? i have tried to get one working before to no avail, it's just sitting here collecting dust...thanks.

rjd2 wrote:
it can't be the drive "about to die". i have likely killed more zip drives and replaced them than anyone on this forum. not once do they warn before giving up the ghost. plus, it does the same thing on 2 brand new drives, so it cant be the drive.

Are you able to take a voltage reading at the power cable for the Zip drive to make sure it is getting correct power?

If you aren't able to use a Zip on the internal IDE I'm not sure if an IDE CF will work any better.

I would recommend removing any expansions such as RAM, 8-outs, etc to see if one of these is causing the issue.

rjd2 wrote:does anyone know the jumper settings for the addonics CF card reader? i have tried to get one working before to no avail, it's just sitting here collecting dust...thanks.

Which Addonics card reader?

Is it a passive adapter like the ADIDECF?

For that one the only jumper setting you need is Master. All that adapter is doing is converting a CF connector to an IDE one. Most of the issues with installing them come from cabling and CF cards.

Make sure you have a 40-pin IDE cable not an 80-pin (40 and 80 pin refers to the number of conductors in the ribbon)

Make sure the Compact Flash card is being recognized as a fixed disc. Some are flagged as removable, some you can change the flag with utilities and some you can't. A lot depends on the brand of the CF card you are using.

Good luck!