I have a machine with an internal Iomega Zip-250 drive, running Debian stable (Lenny). I have been using it to back up a pile of Zip-100 disks from back when they were popular. Once I learned to mount them using /dev/hdd4, things mostly run smoothly. Unfortunately, one of them refuses to mount. Even worse, when I try to mount it, it sometimes deletes /dev/hdd4 entirely, leaving the rest of the /dev/hdd* nodes alone:
eswald:~/backups/iomega> grep zipdrive /etc/fstab
/dev/hdd4 /media/zipdrive auto noauto,user,dmask=022,fmask=133 0 0
(exit 0) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega> ls -l /dev/hdd?
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 65 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd1
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 66 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd2
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 67 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd3
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 68 2009-12-12 20:58 /dev/hdd4
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 69 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd5
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 70 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd6
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 71 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd7
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 72 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd8
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 73 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd9
(exit 0) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega> mount -r /media/zipdrive
mount: special device /dev/hdd4 does not exist
(exit 1) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega> ls -l /dev/hdd?
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 65 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd1
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 66 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd2
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 67 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd3
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 69 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd5
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 70 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd6
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 71 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd7
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 72 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd8
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 73 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd9
(exit 0) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega> sudo mknod /dev/hdd4 b 22 68
[sudo] password for eswald:
(exit 0) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega> mount -r /media/zipdrive
mount: /dev/hdd4 is not a valid block device
(exit 1) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega> ls -l /dev/hdd?
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 65 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd1
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 66 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd2
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 67 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd3
brw-r--r-- 1 root root 22, 68 2009-12-12 21:23 /dev/hdd4
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 69 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd5
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 70 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd6
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 71 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd7
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 72 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd8
brw-rw---- 1 root floppy 22, 73 2009-12-12 11:05 /dev/hdd9
(exit 0) (0 jobs)
eswald:~/backups/iomega>
Similar things error messages happen without -r. A previous use of the mknod command listed has worked before to mount another zip disk, after it was deleted while mounting this one; any successful mount resets the permissions and group to look like the other hdd nodes.
Trying to mount it also results in some error messages in /var/log/messages:
[1162348.230836] hdd: 98304kB, 196608 blocks, 512 sector size
[1162348.232342] hdd: 98304kB, 96/64/32 CHS, 4096 kBps, 512 sector size, 2941 rpm
[1162348.527145] hdd:<3>ide-floppy: hdd: I/O error, pc = 28, key = 7, asc = 30, ascq = 80
[1162348.640697] Dev hdd: unable to read RDB block 0
[1162348.706355] unable to read partition table
This particular disk was used on Macintosh System 7 machines, in 1997-1998, and was probably initialized with a Macintosh file system. HFS is listed in /proc/filesystems, and I am willing to install other file systems on suggestion. However, I seem to recall having used Iomega's encryption facilities for this disk; if so, I probably still remember the password, but I need to find a way to use it.
Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the Macintosh machines on which I originally used it, nor any others with zip drives.
