>    I've looked through the past few months of the archived mailing
>lists to find out how to setup a UFS on a Zip 100 disk.  From what I've
>read, there has been one success (by Jon Howell) using the following
>procedure:
>
>    i)  format the Zip disk with Iomega Tools
>   ii)  partition the disk with SilverLining
>  iii)  mkfs,
>
>and another success (by wookie@us.net) where only the mkfs portion of
>the procedure was described:
>
>    Use "512" as the magic number for any values that weren't
>automatically detected and any values that you know are valid that mkfs
>needs to create a file system on a Zip disk (ex. tracks/cylnd = 512,...

Here's what you'll need to have to format properly (these values have
worked for me):

Sector size: 512
Sectors/Trk: 40
Tracks/Cyl:  512
Number Cyl:  2406
File system size should be automatically detected.

>
>The partitioning software I have is Transoft's SCSI Director, which is a
>newer version of their APS partitioning software.  I have some questions:
>
>    1)  Has anyone successfully used APS to partition a Zip disk for use
>        with under NetBSD?


In my experiences APS, it can't be done.  The software just doesn't allow
*any* kind of examination of ZIP disks (probably removeable media in
general).  It only knows that there is something on SCSI ID 5 that it can't
talk to.  Silverlining appears to be the only thing that works.


>    2)  If I repartition my Zip disk with SCSI Director, the Iomega driver
>        on the disk will be overwritten and the SCSI Director's driver for
>        removable SCSI media will be installed on the disk.  If I reformat
>        the Zip disk with Iomega Tools, then will the Iomega driver be
>        reinstalled on the disk, and I'll end up with a usable Zip disk
>        under MacOS again?

The only thing that you should probably worry about is to make sure that
your disk does not have a label for "auto-eject" turned on.  This will
cause a problem for you when you drop MacOS and go to BSD.  As long as your
driver will support this, you really don't need to worry about much else.
I've been using the Silverlining/LaCie driver now for a while.  I haven't
had any problems with it.

Extra detail:

Because of Zip's weird geometry, you'll see that when booting up you'll get
a message that the drive is using fictitious geometry.  I'm not sure if
this is problem is being caused by an incorrect value on the format of the
drive or if the problem is within the hardware itself.

Here's what I'm using for partition sizes for a 100MB Zip disk:

  Mac vol: 1200
     Root: 78596
     Swap: 18432

NOTE: Make sure that your Mac partition is the first filesystem partition.
I had a few problems (like the Mac partition not being recognized and
asking me to re-format) with my BSD paritions first.

To increase the response time of the Zip drive, you may want to turn off
the spin-down on the drive.  Zip disks' spin down time is usually only a
few minutes.  You can elect to raise it to a higher time such as a few
hours or you can turn off the spin down all together.  Your choice...

I hope this helps...

Jon
wookie@us.net