Carlos E. R. wrote: > > The Monday 2007-06-18 at 18:25 -0500, Clark Sann wrote: > > > It turned out to be very easy to make my 100 MB Parallel port zip drive > > work. > > Here are 6 simple steps along with some comments.... > > > 1. From a root shell, run modprobe ppa and modprobe imm. > > That should be "or". > > > One of them should work to install the drivers for your parallel port > > zip drive. > > Right. > > > > ( I guess "install the drivers" is accurate?? > > No, it "loads" the driver, or rather, module, which was already > "installed" with the kernel. It is an integral part of the kernel, in > module form. > > > I am a little fuzzy as to just what it is that modprobe does. > > I'm even more fuzzy about what insmod does.) > > Let's just say that the former has some intelligence and can load extra > modules if necessary, with options, while insmod is "dumb", or rather > lower > level if you like. > > > For me, imm did not work, but ppa did. > > > My research showed that imm only works for newer drives. Mine is REAL > > old. > > Yes, that's correct, ppa is the old version. > > > I don't really understand why, but when running modprobe, the > results of > > the modprobe command are not shown in the terminal window. Goofy > linux. > > Classic Linux commands doesn't say any thing if all went well ;-) > > > Instead you have to go look at var/log/messages to see the results of > > the execution of the command. One of them should produce messages > > indicating the parallel port zip drive has been found. The messages > will > > also tell you what device has been created. This will be an entry in > > the /dev folder. Once I ran modprobe ppa, a new /dev/sda4 folder > > appeared. Make a note of the folder name. > > Or just use the folder straight away. > > > 2. Create a mount point. I added a folder named zip100.0 to /media.... > > what I ended up was this.... > > /media/zip100.0. > > > This becomes the place where the directory of the zip drive will be > > placed when you get the kernel talking to the hardware. > > > 3. Modify /etc/fstab. This ties the device to the mount point. I > > modified fstab by adding the following line.... > > > /dev/sda4 /media/zip100.0 vfat > auto,user,exec,sync 0 0 > > > This tells the kernel to tie the device (/dev/sda4) to the mount point > > (/media/zip100.0). > > It also says that the drive will be formatted using FAT, that it should > > be automatically mounted (which did not work so you might just as well > > put in noauto instead), > > It will probably be mounted as soon as you load the ppa module. This can > be done on boot if wanted. > > > that any user can mount the drive, that you can execute binaries, and > > that the mount occurs synchronously. > > > I prefer to use "noexec" for vfat mounts. I don't like all files be > thought as executables in vfat dirs. > > > 4. Now it is time to mount the drive. Everything up to now is setting > > up the plumbing to allow you to mount. > > > Stuff a zip disk in the drive, preferably one with data on it. From a > > shell, type "mount /media/zip100.0" Now you should see the directory of > > the disk in /media/zip100.0. Isn't linux wonderful? And so easy too! > > Yep! :-) > > > > When you are done, issue the command "umount /media/zip100.0". You will > > not be able to eject the disk until you > > unmount it. Note, unmount is "umount" not "unmount". > > > 5. There are only two problems remaining. The first is that it sucks > > to have to enter "modprobe ppa" or "modprobe imm" every > > time you boot. To fix this, in /etc/init.d/boot.local, add either > > "modprobe ppa" or "modprobe imm". This will > > cause the command to be automatically executed at boot time. > > Yes, if you have the drive connected permanently. > > > How to test your new zip drive installation.... > > Ah, I think there are some extra zip tools in the "mtools" suite: look up > "mzip". You can, for instance, write-protect a disc, for instance - but I > never tried. And they say it is buggy :-} > > > > Eject should unmount the drive and then eject it. > > For me eject did not always do the eject but it did always unmount it. > > You can always eject it manually. > > Try using eject a second time. > > > > Also sometimes, the whole thing stops working and you cannot read or > > unmount or eject. I had to reboot when this happened. > > Maybe because you loaded both modules and they conflicted. Also, how the > parallel port is defined in the BIOS has an important effect: it may use > only 4 bits to communicate with the drive, or 8 bits, or try to use dma - > the last doesn't work with mine. > > > > Restarting KDE did not work. > > > I hope this helps. Unfortunately I no longer have my zip drive or any > > disks. > > I only had the system long enough to see if any old disks I had laying > > around had any useful data on them. > > I should do that and move data to CDs... > > > I will still try to help, especially in the short term while my memory > > is still good! HA! > > I'm going from memory in this respect, too. I haven't used it for more > than a year. I could easily be wrong on details. > Just a couple further questions regarding everyones comments....
Regarding etc/modules. I don't have that file. Is that unusual? Can I just create it if I need it? With respect to the problems I was having, I recall there was one disk, I think it was a tools disk...it came with the Iomega drive. Whenever I put that disk in and then tried to mount it, something bad happened and it wouldn't mount. Neither would any other disks until I rebooted. I have a hunch it was some weird format, something other than vfat. It has been so long since I had one of these drives on Win, I just can't remember what was special about that disk. I bet that the suggestion to rmmod and modprobe would have worked. Unfortunately, I don't have the drive any longer so I can't test. Thanks for the comments everyone! Clark -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
