emh Posted February 7, 2003 Report Share Posted February 7, 2003 I have a 100 MB Iomega Zip drive connected to the parallel port. It worked just fine in Mandrake 8.2. However, it seems to not want to work in Mandrake 9.0, even though it mounts just fine. Anytime I try to access it, I get an I/O error. In the BIOS, my parallel port is set to ECP+EPP. On a possibly related note, my Xerox DocuPrint C8 printer, which also is connected to the parallel port, which also worked just fine in Mandrake 8.2, now no longer works in 9.0, even though the Control Center detects it and thinks it's working. In summary, neither of my parallel port devices are working. Any ideas? Or do you need more information? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted February 8, 2003 Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 Check to see what interrupts are being used. It may be that the printer and the zip drive are trying to use the same one. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2003 I'm not really sure how to check that. Although wouldn't they be using the same IRQ anyway since they use the same port? By the way, both devices work just fine in Windows 98SE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted February 9, 2003 Report Share Posted February 9, 2003 At the moment I can't find out where you can get that information in KDE. If you are still running Windows, go to Control Panel>System>Device Manager. Look down the list of devices for your two devices. If they, or any others for that matter, have a question mark or exclamaton point over them then there is a problem. Also look at the interrupts they are connected to. AFAIK, they must me on separate interrupts. You could also try changing the parallel port settings in the BIOS and see if that affects your problem. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 I have since re-installed Mandrake (new hard drive). My parallel port printer is not connected to the printer at all. My zip drive still refuses to work in Linux. I don't understand, it worked just fine in Mandrake 8.2, as did the parallel port printer, and I didn't do anything special to get them to work. They just did. Why isn't this the case with 9.0? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted February 10, 2003 Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 Did you do an upgrade or did you install version 9.0 over-top of 8.2??? Some users have reported things breaking when trying upgrades rather than re-installs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 I did a fresh install. I started with a blank Linux partition and installed it, so that's not the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted February 10, 2003 Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 The answer to your question about why it worked in 8.2 and 9.0 is that Mandrakesoft programmers have the rather undesirable habit of frigging about with things that already work or making changes that fix some things and break others. A read of the kernel mailing list gives testimony to that. Try searching this board for "zip drives" and see if anything comes back. Also do the interrupt check again in the KDE Control Center or Info Center if you are using Texstar's 3.1. Since most modern motherboards share interrupts (particularly with PCI slots) you still may have a conflict. If you haven't already done so, change the bios settings to a standard printer port without the frills if you can do this without disabling the drive, then put them back one at a time each and then back to both. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2003 You seem to be convinced that it's an IRQ conflict. But if that was the case, then it wouldn't work in Windows either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted February 11, 2003 Report Share Posted February 11, 2003 Maybe. Maybe not. But it gets one source of problems out of the way. Starting close to the metal can never be a mistake. A waste of time is a possibility. And you did say it worked in 8.2 but 9.0. Do a search of this board on "zip drives" to see if others have had problems. Parallel port drives combined with other devices are something of a crude hack that works for many things sometimes but flakes out at others. Zip drives have suffered from a lack of serious attention because of their initial problems and subsequently the growth in size of hard drives. This leaves you more or less on your own unless someone else has solved the issue and seen your post or otherwise solves the problem. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 11, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2003 After more investigating, I don't think the problem is with the zip drive. It's with the driver for the parallel port. Now if only I knew how to fix the problem.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 12, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 12, 2003 Well, I went into the BIOS and changed the setting for the parallel port to a different setting. And miraculously, the zip drive worked,...........but only for the first disk I put in it. If I tried to get it to access another disk, I keep getting input/output errors. But if I put that same disk back in, it reads just fine. Seems I can't change disks without rebooting. Manually mounting and unmounting the drive has no effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Counterspy Posted February 12, 2003 Report Share Posted February 12, 2003 Now it sounds like you are a victim of the supermount bug. Remove it with the command supermount -i disable and try mounting and unmounting by hand. There is a program called automount on one of your Mandrake disks which you can use but the setup is a bit daunting. There are tutorials floating about and there are several man pages for it on your drive. Just so you don't think you are being cursed, the same problem occurs with all removable devices in V 9.0. Counterspy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emh Posted February 13, 2003 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2003 Somehow I figured you'd blame supermount. :P However, it wouldn't explain the parallel port printer not working (not really an issue, I got a Lexmark z23 printer to replace it several months ago and it works just fine). I'd rather not disable supermount entirely. It always works for me for CD's and floppies, I've never had a problem with it in all the time I've used Linux. Plus I really liked it mounting my digital camera the first time I plugged it in. I wouldn't have known what to do otherwise. (granted, I've had to manually mount it since then, but I've never had a problem doing so) Nevertheless, I will try disabling supermount, to see if it makes a difference. I did try disabling supermount for the Zip drive only, with no effect. Although I really think the problem is with Linux not being able to properly read my parallel port, like a broken driver or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandriva-user Posted February 13, 2003 Report Share Posted February 13, 2003 Counterspy Now it sounds like you are a victim of the supermount bug. Remove it with the command supermount -i disable and try mounting and unmounting by hand. There is a program called automount on one of your Mandrake disks which you can use but the setup is a bit daunting. Your right Counterspy It is a bug in Mandrake 9.0,the upgrade md 9.1,the supermount bug is it fixed or does any one upgrade MD 9.1 and can tell us if supermount for zip drive is fixed already(bug)?. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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