Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 14:55:26 -0500 From: Bob Johnson <bob@eng.ufl.edu> To: t0ad775@yahoo.com, questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: help (Zip disks won't mount) Message-ID: <3ABBAA2E.76F5CFF4@eng.ufl.edu> References: <3ABB7CBD.1963B50D@eng.ufl.edu>
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See http://www.win.tue.nl/math/dw/personalpages/aeb/linux/zip/zip-1.html (more details below) Bob Johnson wrote: > > > Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:11:23 -0800 (PST) > > From: TOad Stool <t0ad775@yahoo.com> > > Subject: help > > You improve your chance of getting a response if you use > a subject line that summarizes your problem. > > > > > I own a iomega zip drive, and i have a problem. When i > > mount a zip, it gives me an error like "invalid > > argument". But only one out of the four, zip disks, i > > have will mount correctly. And all of them have the > > same file system. I used the mount_msdos command. > > > > Different operating systems seem to format Zip disks > so that they are not inter-operable. One day I tried > formatting disks with Win 98 and Win 2K, and they > were unreadable to each other. They could both be > read under FreeBSD, but had to be mounted differently. > > > > > like so, # mount_msdos /dev/afd0 /zip100 > > Try mount_msdos /dev/afd0s4 /zip100 > and see if that helps. I've seen some evidence that > mounting with longnames helps, although I didn't follow > that up. > > Here is my fstab for zip disks. The zip directories > are all symlinked to /zip, so once the disk is mounted, > it is always available as /zip > > /dev/afd0s4 /zipx msdos rw,noauto,longnames 0 0 > /dev/afd0s4 /zipu ufs rw,noauto 0 0 > /dev/afd0 /zip msdos rw,noauto,longnames 0 0 > > I've found three techniques that help make Zip disks more > portable. The first is to use factory formatted disks and > never reformat them. > > The second is to find a factory formatted disk, and use > dd to make an image of it. dd the image back out to a disk > that has been mangled by Windows, and it usually helps. I > don't remember what partition table you end up with. > > The third is to use FreeBSD fdisk to edit the partition info > so that it is legal. It turns out that Zip disks, for some > mysterious reason, often have invalid partition tables. I've > seen a rumor that the invalid data is meaningful to Macs, but > I haven't confirmed that. If you can adjust the partition table > to: > > part 1: unused > Part 2: unused > Part 3: unused > Part 4: sysid 6,(Primary 'big' DOS (> 32MB)) > start 32, size 196576 (95 Meg), flag 80 (active) > beg: cyl 0/ sector 1/ head 1; > end: cyl 95/ sector 32/ head 63 > > you ought to end up with a Zip disk that is portable > between FreeBSD and Windows. Mount it on FreeBSD > from /dev/afd0. Don't let any version of Windows > reformat the disk. > > Some day I'll spend more time looking in to this. > If I do, the results will be available at > http://www.afn.org/~afn01750/inspiron.html > OK. I did some more investigating, and my fears were realized. The fundamental problem is that some operating systems (and the ATAPI spec) expect Zip disks to be formatted as giant floppies, i.e., they have no partition tables. To confuse things further, some ATAPI Zip drives do various things to try to "fix" this for you. More details (and some _possible_ solutions) are at: http://www.win.tue.nl/math/dw/personalpages/aeb/linux/zip/zip-1.html but I think the ultimate solution will be an ATAPI option of some sort for mount, e.g. mount_ATAPI /dev/afd0 /zip would just "know" how to deal with an MS-DOS formatted Zip disk. > > > > afd0 is my zip drive and /zip100 is the mount point > > > > > > - Bob -- ********************************************************* Bob Johnson Senior Systems Programmer bob@eng.ufl.edu College of Engineering 523 Weil Hall 352-392-9217 Office University of Florida 352-392-7063 Fax Gainesville, FL 32611 ********************************************************* "Security is not a product, it's a mentality." . . To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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