2000 Classic External Zip Woes...

Finally found an external SCSI Zip 250 drive and it worked perfectly when I formatted a Zip 100 disk on the MPC itself. I could boot off of it, load programs, sequences, everything. Now, I was fully aware that putting the Zip 100 disk into my PC with an internal Zip 250 drive and formatting would erase everything -- duh. So I formatted with FAT16 and only attempted to copy the 2000 1.72 OS onto the disk, and it works fine; transfer is smooth and quick. When I go to boot off of it on the MPC and it doesn't work. Gotta boot off of floppy, and then when I go to check the SCSI-5 channel, the Drive pops up and the disk reads as having only 83.xxMB left (which makes no sense considering the OS is only around 700KB) -- usually Zip 100s read as 95.xxMB

What's even more strange is that the MPC reads some random ass files on the disk (which don't exist) as garbage letters that are 9999999KB. I put the disk back into my PC and checked for any hidden files and none showed up, on the OS .EXE and .SYS files -- which for some reason don't show on the MPC (or boot like I said)

Another thing: I formatted again and put nothing on the Zip 100 disk, I put it into the MPC (which booted off of a floppy) and scanned the SCSI-5 channel, it shows again with some random garbage files which don't exist. So I copied the OS from the floppy onto the FAT16 formatted Zip disk, and it can boot off of it perfectly -- funny thing is that the copied OS doesn't show up in Windows.

I haven't put any files over 8 characters or anything like that. Anyone know what the issue is? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm using a Zip 250 drive with a 100 disk -- highly doubt that, though. The disk works fine on my PC.

I didn't name the actual disk itself (to avoid conflicts) -- that didn't work, so I named the disk "mpc" and that didn't work either.

Sorry for wall of text!

I did just read on Wikipedia that 250 drives cannot perform a long or "thorough" format of a 100 disk. I'm nearly positive that this is what is causing all the problems. I don't wanna blow $50 on a four pack of disks, though.

Least they don't cost as much as Jaz disks. Speaking of which, anyone need some of those? I got like 8 or so 2GB ones... I know they go for like $130 a piece just for the disk.

i had the same problem

My advice is to NOT format the zips at all !

If you can get some new or used disks, put them in the computer to check if it reads, then put it in the MPC to check if it reads.

If it reads in both, don't format. Now you have a disk for transferring between the two machines

if it doesn't read on one of the machines then you have to decide which machine you want to use it with.

I use 250 & 100.

as an example:
Out of the 20 disks I have got from various people on ebay. 2 didn't work at all. 2 I had to format to MPC and 16 I haven't had to format at all and work perfect.

I don't know if the factory default formatting that makes it work, but I haven't got one to work in the MPC properly if it was formatted on a PC.

good luck

Yeah, so you're obviously using a 250 drive. If you try to format 100 disks on a 250 drive, it will only work on that machine that you did it on. So an MPC using a 250 drive to format a 100 disk will let you use it exclusively on the MPC. Using 250 disks on the 250 drive -- you should have no problems formatting on the PC using FAT16.

Most disks vended my Iomega are pre-formatted to IBM standards, which is cross compatible between Macs and PCs, which is probably why it works for you.

I guess what would be nice now is if someone knows any way (despite this being a hardware issue) to format a 100 disk using a 250 drive (internal on PC) for use on the MPC without any errors and whatnot.

i didn't know about this issue or think about it anyway.

I Have many Zip drives 100,250,scsi, parallel
so I'll look into it some more.
thanks

Well I have figured out that installing Iomega's Zip 250 utilities from their site fixes the issue partially. It has it's own formatting utility that automatically formats in FAT16 -- this allows me to transfer files onto the MPC and save and everything that I'd need to do with the exception of booting off of the drive. That is the only issue. I can bear booting from a floppy for now, though.

Question, do you use MPC Editor? It has a function to format the drive for you, which is what I use whenever putting sounds on my zips (100s) and I have yet to experience any issue.

Is that using a 250 drive? If so, cool. But IomegaWare works also.