I'm new to this mailing list, so haven't followed all of the zip
problems and attempted fixes. However, there are some similarities to a
problem that I had and found a workaround. I was attempting to put
MkLinux and MacOS partitions on a jaz drive. I couldn't get the patched
HDSC to work, so I used pdisk (a Mac utility that is used with MkLinux)
to create the partitions. However, when booting, MacOS insisted that the
entire disk needed to be initialized instead of the small MacOS
partition. What I stumbled on was to create another MacOS partition of
minimal size. That is, I had a 50mb Mac partition, a 1mb Mac partition,
and the rest as a unix partition. For some reason, this worked.

I've been told that when you partition a disk, you have to reboot before
you access that disk so that the changed info gets loaded. I don't know
if it is true or not, so I just did it.

There may (or may not) be anything here that will help you find a
workaround, but good luck.

Dave