VS 1680 doesn't recognize my ZIP Drive

[tbolding]

Bought a Zip Drive three years ago and wound up never taking it out of the box, until now. I am trying to backup data from my recently purchased VS1680. I have the SCSI cable hooked up properly. When I power up the VS, it gets about half way thru bootup and stops. The manual doesn't give any real details about this procedure, so I'm kinda' lost. Thanks in advance for any help.
~~tbolding

 

[musicmaker]

Same Zip problem as you.

hi,I am not provide you any answer with your problem but I am with the same problem as you. When I connect my zip to the VS880EX scsi port, the VS is just swicth on and off in less than half second, the LCD display is just flashing and the VS will off automatically. Even ocasionally I sucessfully swicth on the power of the VS with the Zip connected, the VS will stuck at the 'Scanning Drive' process, I try to wait for it to response, but it will never and I finally have to kill the power and try again, but with the same result.

What the user manual stated is ASSUME the vs can reach the play mode, unless reach the play mode only you can press the 'SYSTEM' button to select which external drive you want to initialize rite? But we just get stuck before what the manual stated.

If you have solve your problem, please let me know what is going wrong. I will tell you if I solve it as well. Thank you.

wai

 

[tbolding]

Wai,
My zip drive problem was explained by Wil Davis, who also posts in this forum. I emailed him for help, and he promptly responded with the answer. I will share with you what he said:

First - make sure your Zip drive is a SCSI drive (assuming yours is an IOMEGA Zip drive) - the parallel-port version looks very similar, and has almost identical connectors (although they are two females on the SCSI version, and one female and one male on the parallel-port version - the parallel-port version doesn't have the terminator and id-selection switches). The parallel-port version WILL NOT WORK ON THE SCSI INTERFACE!!!!!
According to your description, you only have the Zip drive on the SCSI chain, so the SCSI address of the Zip drive isn't likely to be in conflict with anything else on the chain, however you might want to change the address - just to see if it makes a difference (if you have an IOMEGA Zip drive, there are only two choices: 5 or 6).
The main thing is to make sure that the SCSI cable is OK (and not too long), and that the cable is terminated correctly at the Zip drive end (if you're using an IOMEGA Zip drive, there is a terminating switch (on/off) which needs to be in the "on" position if the drive is at the end of the chain).
Hope this helps -
- Wil

 

[musicmaker]

Unfortunetely, my zip is the 'Parallel Iomega Zip', hence it won't work with VS as what you mentioned. I am going to get a SCSI ZIP. According to what u said, the SCSI ZIP has a terminator built in and has a swicth at the drive? What do you mean I only have two choice, 5 & 6? Are you mean the SCSI ID setting on the VS or on the ZIP itself??

Can you please describe the SCSI ZIP so that I can explain to the shop. Can I get it from normal computer store? I haven't heard of SCSI ZIP before, most of the iomega zip is with parrallel port. Anyway, you have exactly pointed out my problem, thank you very much and nice to know you. I will inform you if I solve this problem out! Bye.

wai

 

[musicmaker]

I forget to ask you something, since the SCSI ZIP has 2 female ports, this mean I can't use my SCSI cable already and I have to get a new one which with both 'male' at both end right?

 

[tbolding]

Wai-
Your SCSI cable should be male at both ends. Just make sure the ends match up with the connectors on your VS and the zip. According to my manual, it would be possible to "daisy chain" up to 7 zip drives from the VS with SCSI numbers 0 tru 6. The Iomega Zips can only be set to SCSI 5 or SCSI 6. As far as what these SCSI zips look like, I don't know. But, they should have 2 female connectors, a switch for selecting SCSI 5 or 6, and a switch to enable/disable the terminator. I will be looking for one Monday. Good luck!
~~ tbolding