Iomega Jaz drive on thinkpad - outcome.

[Alden S Klovdahl <Alden.Klovdahl@anu.edu.au>]

many thanks to those who offered suggestions regarding the problems i was
having with the Jaz drive i bought .  here is a summary of my experiences.
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage; Thinkpad list.
Subject: jaz drive
Summary: jaz drive problems and prospects
Keywords: JAZ backup Iomega scsi pcmcia  thinkpad

having posted a bit about the problems i was having getting an Iomega
Jaz drive to work on the following system ...

              thinkpad 755CE
              new media bustoaster pcmcia scsi card
              wfwg 3.11

i might add the following:

we finally got the damn thing to work.  twice in a row.  wow.  i not sure i dare
try for 3 in a row!

after getting nowhere with wfwg 3.11 we installed win95 over the top of it. all
sort of problems there, including non recognition of the pcmcia cards.  then
reinstalled wfwg 3.11 and win95 on top and the pcmcia cards were recognized.

the Jaz was there as drive D: at first, then it disappeared.  a win95 scandisk
turned up the error: 'allocation chain for Iomega.vdx stored in wrong location'.
win95 fixed that.

system kept hanging when trying to use any of the Iomega Jaz setup tools.  
finally guest95 worked from the 3.5 diskette, the drive was there, and i did
the install/setup95 routines from the tools disk.  and it seems to be there.

some comments:

1.  if you get a Jaz drive don't be surprised if you have problems with it -
problems seem common.

2. expect a) no help from Iomega and b) to spend a good deal of time with it.
in my case i was helped by a first rate support person within the university,
suggestions from several experts on the thinkpad list, and this newsgroup,
new media, ibm support, and a few others.  nothing from Iomega.

3.  i made the (almost) fatal mistake of thinking the Jaz could be used as
an extra drive.  worked great while it worked.  when it stopped working i
had a week's worth of data on an inaccessible drive.

when you buy a Jaz drive you should be asking yourself:  what am i going to 
buy to back up the Jaz?

4.  the Jaz disks *seem* fragile.  after one of my long sessions trying to get
it working one slipped out of my hand as i was trying to put it back into its
case and dropped about 3-4" onto a plastic diskette box.  after that it made
a lot of noise when i stuck it in the drive.  first time the drive was up 
again, it came up as needing reformating.  (it was the tools disk.)

but, in fairness, i should add that after getting the Jaz working again i 
stuck the tools disk in again and it was there.  i then used it to install the
win95 stuff.  readable but it makes noise when spinning up - i am not sure
if that will damage the drive heads in the longer term.

in sum, for the Jaz drive is a great concept but:

  a) there is no support if you have problems;

  b) it seems pretty dicey to trust it with any critical data.

regards, al




 Alden S Klovdahl /   alden.klovdahl@anu.edu.au    / fax: +61 62 49 05 25
 Sociology Arts  / Australian National University / Canberra ACT Australia 0200