VST 100 zip drive PowerBook 3400c

[puckman]

As per title, grabbed myself a sweet, brand new in box, never opened ZIP drive for my 3400c but it don't seem to work. When I insert a disk it grunts 3 times and then just sits there.

Seeing it was still sealed I'm hoping it's fine and I'm doing something wrong.

Anyone got any ideas? I have 9.2.2 on the drive. Disk util sees the drive but claims there is no disk in the drive, tried several disks, all same sound. Disks work in my USB and SCSI zip drives.

 

[LCGuy]

Dumb question I know, but you have installed the Zip drivers, right? Also, I've never dealt with one of those VST drives before - do they need special drivers, or do they use the normal Iomega drivers?

 

[puckman]

The VST drivers are simply rebadged Iomega drivers which are loaded.

Restarting into my 8.6 partition, see what that does.

 

[LCARS]

Did you try a PRAM reset? That has worked wonders for me on occasion, though admittedly under 10.3 more than 9.2.2.

 

[puckman]

OS 10? Hey this is the 68KMLA

yeah yeah, I know, 3400c is a G3, anyways, Zip drive works like a dream under 8.6 so guess a troubleshooting session with extensions and control panels is in order. Gosh I miss the simple days of classic Mac OS. Hey who know, maybe I will get my Colour Quickcam to work under 9.2.2?

 

[NeverGoBack88]

Ah yes, ye olde Zip drive problem! I too, have a 3400c and 100mb Zip module and indeed it does work fine under OS 8.6 as you mentioned, - perhaps because the Iomega drivers originally accompanying that 100mb Zip module are fairly concurrent with 8.6's place in time. How well does 9.2.2 actually run for you on the 3400c? Not that it's entirely conclusive, but my understanding was that the 3400c can't really support anything past OS 9.0.4, maybe 9.1. I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to run 9.2.2 on a 3400c, but that's just me.

I also went back to 8.6 on the 3400c for specific apps & peripheral reasons, but because I experienced a whole ration of issues on my Pismo with OS 9.2 and its subtle design-for-link-to-OS X difference, I went back to 9.1 on the Pismo to keep everything working as it had for many years and still does, including a 250mb Zip module. I would suspect that 9.2.2 in its relationship to the specific Iomega driver isn't compatible at that level and be part of the problem. What Iomega driver version(s) have you used/tried? There are so many. I've got pretty much every variant of Zip drives: 100mb & 250mb, modules and externals, SCSI and USB, AC powered and bus-powered. Iomega is maddening and too often late to the party! But it sure was a big change from floppies!

Yeah, how about those days of the classic Mac OS? There was a time long long ago when we all understood what every file on the machine was and what it was for.