USB Zip Drive linux trouble.

[psyjax]

Can Linux mount a DOS formated USB Zip?

Linux recognizes my zip drive, it knows it's in the computer. They are talkin to each other, but it dosn't open the Zip wich is DOS formated.

I tried "mount msdos /dev/fsd4 /mnt/zip"

And it still woulent work. Not sure if the command is the same for external stotage as it is for internal filesystems. i.e. I mounted my windoze partition this way.

Anyhoo...

I used the Mount Utility under KDE to try and format the disk to ext3, but the format starts. Then stops abruptly and the disk remains untouched, no errors are issued by linux. The light on the Zip comes on and everything, it's talking with the computer, but linux still refuses to mount it or format it.

Any ideas?

[voidmain]

You listed an invalid mount command and the device name you listed I am fairly certain is wrong also. It certainly is wrong for the parallel version, I would have to check for the USB version.

On my parallel version I have it set up to automatically mount/unmount the disk but if I were to manually mount it it would be:

# mount -t vfat /dev/zip /mnt/zip

or

# mount -t vfat /dev/sdb4 /mnt/zip

You shouldn't even need the "-t vfat" as mount should recognize the file system type on the zip disk. Normally the zip drive is on "/dev/sda4" but in my case I have another SCSI controller my zip had to be on sdb rather than sda. But again, I don't have the USB version so I can't tell you if that is different. There was a really good HOWTO on zip drives (at least the parallel version).

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[psyjax]

# mount -t vfat /dev/sdb4 /mnt/zip

hey void. I'm sorry Iw as a bit loose with explaining my problem  

I was writting the commands off the top of my head.

My zip is indeed listed as sda4. I inputed the command as listed above and it reports back:

wrong fs type, too many file sustems mounted, or bad superblock.

Also, within KDE, double clicking the zip just returns the error that it dosn't recognize the filesystem. Hmmm...

I can't get it to format the disk eaither. The same results, but the computer does attempt to read and write to it. I'm not sure what the issue is.

In any case, I'm gonna try to reformat the disk under windoze to DOS. It was formated to DOS in my G4, windoze dosn't have a problem with it, but Linux may.

[voidmain]

What do you get when you type:

# fdisk -l /dev/sda

It should show something like:

Code: [Select]

And have you looked at the HOWTOs such as this:

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/mini/ZIP-Drive.html

Assuming fdisk can see the disk partitionTo format the disk like what you would do in Windows it should be:

# mkfs.msdos -F 16 /dev/sda4

[psyjax]

Hey void! Thanx for the site!

Really nice one. I have it bookmarked.

In any case:

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/mini/ZIP-Drive-4.html#ss4.7

Turns out I have been doing the right thing all along. The drive is just unsuported as of now    

Darn... this, and the lack of major software are the only downsides to what is undoubtedly the best OS on the PC.

I mean, that's all it needs. A bigger common user base to push big developers and designers to contribute to the Open-Source movement.

I read an article on the register where they speculated that M$ would eventually make their own linux in a fascion similar to what Apple did with OSX. That is, take a very powerfull opensource OS and build a proprietary GUI on top of it.

Not that I would want M$ to do that of cource!

I think folks should just migrate over to linux. The influx would inevetably speed up development of the GUI into something more well rounded, not to mention the little rugh spots with software and hardware support.

End rant...

I love RedHat 8, to me, it's the future of x86 OS's. At this point it's only a matter of time.

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: psyjax: plain 'ol psyjax ]

[voidmain]

Yeah, like I've said many times, it's a chicken & egg type of thing. On the one hand developers don't want to focus on an OS with a smaller userbase, yet the userbase doesn't grow rapidly because of lack of popular commercial apps.

Fortunately for me I've found alternatives to most of the commercial stuff that I think works just as well or better in many cases. It'll happen, I'm confident of that. Just how long will it take to cross that threshold where the userbase is high enough for massive switch by commercial software vendors is the question. I think we're on the verge with the latest distro releases. It will also prompt hardware vendors to start contributing open drivers to the kernel team.