14 Aug
2007
14 Aug
'07
10:51 p.m.
Does anyone have experience with connecting Model EZ135A SyQuest drives
(that read 135MB removeable cartridges) to PCs? I think they were
originally sold as external SCSI or parallel port devices. The bare drive
that I've got has an IDE type interface, but I'm told they don't identify
themselves properly on the IDE bus so that the PC BIOS doesn't recognise
them. (I'm trying to find a way to read some old archive disks).
14 Aug
14 Aug
11:17 p.m.
At 2:51 PM +1200 8/15/07, Tony Wills wrote:
Does anyone have experience with connecting Model
EZ135A SyQuest
drives (that read 135MB removeable cartridges) to PCs? I think they
were originally sold as external SCSI or parallel port devices. The
bare drive that I've got has an IDE type interface, but I'm told
they don't identify themselves properly on the IDE bus so that the
PC BIOS doesn't recognise them. (I'm trying to find a way to read
some old archive disks).
After my problems on Sunday I'm wondering if you have an 80 connector
cable vs. 40 connector cable problem. Something to try, I've no idea
if it will help. The drive is definitely old enough that if you're
using an 80 connector cable this might be effecting things.
Zane
--
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| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
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15 Aug
15 Aug
12:44 a.m.
On 15 Aug 2007 at 14:51, Tony Wills wrote:
Does anyone have experience with connecting Model
EZ135A SyQuest drives
(that read 135MB removeable cartridges) to PCs? I think they were
originally sold as external SCSI or parallel port devices. The bare drive
that I've got has an IDE type interface, but I'm told they don't identify
themselves properly on the IDE bus so that the PC BIOS doesn't recognise
them. (I'm trying to find a way to read some old archive disks).
I believe the IDE version of the EZ135 as well as the EZFlyer are
ATAPI, so you'll need a driver. Fortunately, there are lots of
drivers around for them--just do a Google. You'll probably have the
best luck finding Win9x versions, though I believe there were DOS
drivers also. BTW, the EZFlyer will read (IIRC but not write) the
EZ135 carts.
Cheers,
Chuck
9:54 a.m.
On Tue, 14 Aug 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 15 Aug 2007 at 14:51, Tony Wills wrote:
Greetings all;
I've owned an EZ135 for many years now - two in fact, as the first one
magically caught fire one day by itself (cough). The EZ135 will appear on
an IDE bus without any tricks - although I've never tried it on an 80 line
cable. I have all of the DOS drivers on diskette if you'd like me to
mirror them for you, but they're definitely too old to include Win9x
support.
While I haven't used the drive under a Microsoft OS in many, many years,
the unit works flawlessly under Linux. It even correctly responds to the
'eject' command :)
JP Hindin
Does anyone have experience with connecting Model
EZ135A SyQuest drives
(that read 135MB removeable cartridges) to PCs? I think they were
originally sold as external SCSI or parallel port devices. The bare drive
that I've got has an IDE type interface, but I'm told they don't identify
themselves properly on the IDE bus so that the PC BIOS doesn't recognise
them. (I'm trying to find a way to read some old archive disks).
I believe the IDE version of the EZ135 as well as the EZFlyer are
ATAPI, so you'll need a driver. Fortunately, there are lots of
drivers around for them--just do a Google. You'll probably have the
best luck finding Win9x versions, though I believe there were DOS
drivers also. BTW, the EZFlyer will read (IIRC but not write) the
EZ135 carts. 
11:07 a.m.
I have all of the DOS drivers on diskette if you'd
like me to
mirror them for you, but they're definitely too old to include Win9x
support.
FWIW the disk images I posted earlier consists of three 1.4M diskettes
which have drivers for DOS, Win95 and OS/2. As noted earlier, unless
you need to use it as a removable drive, you can get away without any
special drivers at all.
I've also got a three disk set for the parallel port version of the drive if
anyone needs them.
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
8:39 a.m.
Does anyone have experience with connecting Model
EZ135A SyQuest drives
(that read 135MB removeable cartridges) to PCs? I think they were
originally sold as external SCSI or parallel port devices. The bare drive
that I've got has an IDE type interface, but I'm told they don't identify
themselves properly on the IDE bus so that the PC BIOS doesn't recognise
them. (I'm trying to find a way to read some old archive disks).
I have a few EZ135 drives kicking around here - Two parallel ones that I
can find, and an IDE one that I can't at the moment - so I can't verify
that it exactly the same model as you mentioned, but it probably is.
The IDE drive is a true IDE drive, and you can talk to it without special
drivers - I used to use one as a boot drive at one point. There are a couple
of caveats however:
1) IIRC the drive does not detect/report itself correctly, and you need to
set up a manual drive type. According to the manual (which I did find),
the settings are:
Heads: 16
Cylinders: 512
Sectors/Track: 32
Write Precomp: 0
Landing Zone: 0
(Obviously these don't match the physical layout!)
2) You can't remove the cartridge without the EZ135 drivers - otherwise it
is not known as a removable device. So make sure the disk is inserted at
boot time and remains in the drive until you shutdown.
In case you want them, I have placed ImageDisk images of the EZ135 IDE
install disks (I found those too!) at:
www.dunfield.com/pub/index.htm
Regards,
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
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ajwills＠paradise.net.nz -
cclist＠sydex.com -
dave06a＠dunfield.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jplist2007＠kiwigeek.com