In the late 90’s I worked (as a contractor) for a company named SyQuest that made removable drives, including the SyJet and SparQ drives that were directly competing with the Iomega Zip drive. I put together a page of things to try when troubleshooting the drives but it was lost when I switched ISP’s. I now have this permanent location to post that type of content and I’ve decided to re-host the page here for historical purposes. The unformatted, raw version can be found at: http://acbit.net/static/syquest.html
SyQuest FAQ, Troubleshooting Solutions
Greetings,
This page was an invaluable resource for SyQuest owners. It started out as semi-canned E-Mail responses and grew into a comprehensive FAQ and troubleshooting guide. All of the information is contained on one page for ease of loading, and all of the references are anchored to the chart at the top, as well as the FAQ listed below. The information was accurate circa 1998 but all phone numbers and other contact information should be considered stale. It was written in a semi-humorous tone in part to ease the pain of those who lost data, a common problem that contributed to the demise of the company as noted on the SparQ WikiPedia page.
A few notes: I left SyQuest when they went bankrupt, but I continued to help SyQuest users on a voluntary basis for several years afterward. This page was formerly located at http://www.frii.com/~dwangoac/syquest.html and I’ve since re-hosted it from my own page for historical reference. Many of the off-site links now link to archive.org’s wayback machine due to those pages being long lost, just like this one had been for so long.
Enjoy this trip down memory lane,
A.C.
******
(Formerly) SyQuest Tech Support.
FAQ Links:
My drive is making funny noises, won’t accept cartridges, or ejects
all of my cartridges. How do I find out if my drive is OK, and what
do I do if it isn’t? – RMA Drive / Cartridge,
RMA,
EIDE
I just installed the software and my computer crashed. How do
I get the drivers working? – IRQ
Conflict or adding /DE /DI, IRQ
Conflict / installation locks, BIOS
/ PP mode
My Parallel Port drive is running so slow it makes the DMV look good.
How do I fix this? – BIOS / PP mode,
REMIDEUP.EXE,
Updating
drivers /
utilities, Mouse
locks up during file transfers
My drive rearranged my drive letters. How do I change them back?
– Drive letter assignment,
Parallel, Drive letter reassignment,
IDE
I’m getting the error “No ASPI or INT 13” when I run the utilities.
My computer seems to hate me. How do I resolve this? – No
ASPI or INT 13
I’m having problems with the drive. I’ve had or do have an Iomega
drive on the system. How can I get them to co-exist? – Searching
for VXD’s
I’m getting a protection error when I start the system up, and I’m freaking
out. How do I fix this terrible message? – Protection
Error
I’m having trouble installing and using an EIDE drive. Blaming
the cat and cussing at the computer didn’t help. What can I try,
and what should I
know about? – BIOS to NONE,
Intel
Chipset check, RemovableIDE=TRUE,
REMIDEUP.EXE
What in the world is all of this junk on my starter cartridge, and can
I get rid of it? – Starter Cartridge information #Starter
Cartridge information:
Can I format a cartridge in FAT32 format? – FAT32
I’ve got an IRQ conflict. What should I check? – IRQ
Conflict or adding /DE /DI, BIOS
/ PP mode
I was having a brainfreeze and I tried to install the DOS drivers on
a Windows machine. How do I fix this? – DOS
installation instead of Windows
I want to boot my system from my SyQuest drive. I have a Parallel
Port drive. Is this possible? – Booting
from a floppy
Power off the computer and the SyQuest and disconnect the data cable
that goes to the drive. Power on the drive with just the power cable connected,
and when you get one green light, insert the cartridge. Make sure it goes
all the way back and locks down into place. If the drive still does not
spin up correctly (i.e. does not go to a solid green light), or if it ejects
the cartridge, the drive is most likely defective and will need replaced.
If you have another cartridge, try that one as well, but if both of them
fail to mount, the drive is definitely defective.
Because they filed Chapter 11, SyQuest no longer does returns / RMA.
If you need to replace the drive, your best bet is to visit http://www.syquestrepair.com.
They will repair your drive for a reasonable fee and are very nice to work
with. I highly recommend their services as they will test your drive and
all of your cartridges.
It sounds like you have a bad drive. Power off the computer and the
SyQuest and disconnect the data cable that goes to the drive. Leave the
power cable connected, however. Power on the drive with just the power
cable connected, and when you get one green light, insert the cartridge
that you had in the drive when you first heard the noises. Make sure it
goes all the way back and locks down into place. If the drive still does
not spin up correctly (i.e. does not go to a solid green light), or if
it ejects the cartridge, the drive is most likely defective and will need
replaced.
Since you heard unusual noises, I would suggest getting the drive and
the cartridge that was in the drive at the time the unusual noises occurred
replaced. If you inserted any other cartridges into the drive after you
heard the noises, it is advised to get those replaced as well.
Because they filed Chapter 11, SyQuest no longer does returns. If you
need to replace the drive, your best bet is to visit http://www.syquestrepair.com.
They will repair your drive for a reasonable fee and are very nice to work
with. I highly recommend their services as they will test your drive and
all of your cartridges.
I would advise backing up your data when you get a new drive. Make sure
you have important files copied to two different locations. Our drive can
be used as a backup drive (as it is unlikely that both your hard drive
and your SyQuest drive will fail at the same time). However, if you use
our drive as a hard drive, it is wise to back up your data to another media,
or store your backup off-site on cartridges you don’t use on a daily basis.
Power off the computer and disconnect the data cable (ribbon cable)
that goes to the drive. Power on the computer with just the power connector
attached and insert the cartridge. Make sure it goes all the way back and
locks down into place. If the drive still does not spin up correctly (i.e.
does not go to a solid green light), or if it ejects the cartridge, the
drive is most likely defective and will need replaced. If you have another
cartridge, try that one as well, but if both of them fail to mount, the
drive is definitely defective.
*NEW* — Because they filed Chapter 11, SyQuest no longer does returns.
If you need to replace the drive, your best bet is to visit http://www.syquestrepair.com.
They will repair your drive for a reasonable fee and are very nice to work
with. I highly recommend their services as they will test your drive and
all of your cartridges.
IRQ Conflict or adding
/DE /DI:
Here’s what you need to do: Go to Start, Settings, and select Control
Panel. Double click on the System icon and select the Device Manager Tab.
When you get there, select SCSI Adapters, open it up and select the SyQuest
drive. Click on Properties and select the settings tab. In the Adapter
Settings field, add the following switches: /DE /DI. If there’s anything
else on that line (say, /w95) replace it with the /DE /DI switches. Click
on OK and then OK once again to exit out of the Device Manager. It will
ask you to reboot your system, hit yes. When you get back into windows,
the drive should be listed in My Computer. Verify that it is accessible
by copying a file over to the drive.
IRQ Conflict / installation
locks:
It sounds like you are getting an IRQ conflict. One way to resolve that
is to do the entire installation in Safe Mode. Do the following:
First off, boot into Safe Mode. If you are using Windows ’98, it is
relatively simple to do this — all you have to do is hold down the CTRL
key while you boot. If you have Windows 95, you will want to hit F8 as
soon as it says “Starting Windows ’95” in the upper left hand corner. It
only says it for a split second, so you may want to hit F8 repeatedly as
your computer starts up. If you get the blue screen with the Windows logo
on it, reboot and try to hit F8 sooner. It can be a pain but.. 🙂 Once
you hit F8, it will bring up a boot menu. You want to select option # 3,
“Safe Mode”. Sorry, Win2K doesn’t support this… It may come up with a
message reminding you that you are in Safe Mode — just acknowledge the
message and continue on with the installation. If the installation gives
you an error message saying that it could not load the driver successfully,
close out of the installation. Once the installation is complete / fails
with the error message, do the following:
Double click on the System icon and select the Device Manager Tab. When
you get there, select SCSI Adapters, open it up and select the SyQuest
drive. Click on Properties and select the settings tab. In the Adapter
Settings field, add the following switches: /DE /DI. If there’s anything
else on that line (say, /w95), replace it with the /DE /DI switches. Click
on OK and then OK once again to exit out of the Device Manager. It will
ask you to reboot your system, hit yes. When you get back into Windows
(which should boot normally), the drive should be listed in My Computer.
Verify that it is accessible by copying a file over to the drive.
To change your Parallel Port Mode, do the following: You need to get
into your system CMOS / BIOS /Setup. You can most likely get into your
BIOS by hitting F1 or Delete at start up. As soon as you start your computer,
you should see a line at the bottom of the screen that says something to
the effect of “Press F1 to enter Setup.” In place of F1, hit whatever key
it tells you to.
Once you get in setup, you will need to find the parallel port mode
settings. You may have to look around a bit to find the parallel port mode.
It is normally listed under Integrated Peripherals or On-Board peripherals.
Once you find it, change the mode for the Parallel Port to EPP. If this
mode is not available, you can also try SPP or Bi-Directional (although
these may not work as well or as fast as EPP would). Experiment with the
different modes to find out which one works the best, but for the most
part EPP is what you want to set it to. If you have trouble getting into
your BIOS or finding the parallel port settings, it would probably be a
good idea to contact your computer manufacturer as they can walk you through
the process.
Searching for conflicting
VXD’s:
You can also search for and rename unused drivers that can conflict
with the SyQuest drive. Go to Start –> Find and search for “*.VXD”. If
you have any of the following files:
- DRVWPPQT.VXD
- DRVWQ117.VXD
- PARASCAN.VXD
- DRVWCDB.VXD
- IOMEGA.VXD
Rename them to .BAK. You can also search for / rename the file EPATAP9X.MPD
— this is a conflicting driver from one of Iomega’s older drives. Once
you rename them, reboot your system for the changes to take effect.
One thing you can try is to change the BIOS mode for your drive to NONE.
This is a neat trick that makes Windows use drivers to run the SyQuest.
You can most likely get into your BIOS by hitting F1 or Delete at start
up. As soon as you start your computer, you should see something at the
bottom of the screen that says something to the effect of “Press F1 to
enter Setup.” In place of F1, hit whatever key it tells you to.
Once you get in setup, change the mode for the SyQuest drive to NONE.
This is different on every system, so you may have to hunt and peck to
find it, but find the location of your SyQuest drive (For instance, Secondary
Master). Somewhere in there is an option to change the “mode”. There are
3 normal modes available: AUTO, USER, and NONE (or Disabled). You want
to change this to NONE or Disabled. If you have trouble getting into your
BIOS or changing the mode, it would probably be a good idea to contact
your computer manufacturer as they can walk you through the process.
Do the following check to see if you have an Intel chipset. To do this,
go to Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> System –> Device Manager
tab –> Hard Disk Controllers. Look at your hard disk drive controllers.
If they match the following:
Hard Disk Controllers
-Primary IDE Controller (single FIFO)
-Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller
-Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller
you will need to get a chipset update. Please visit http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/ideinfup.html
and get the update if this matches your chipset. You can also refer to
technical document #6015 on our web site at http://www.syqt.com/support/tb_6015.html.
This is actually a halfway common problem. You have an Intel chipset
that has a bug which requires a patch to allow a Removable IDE Hard Drive
to work correctly. For more information, please refer to technical document
#6015 on our web site at http://www.syqt.com/support/tb_6015.html.
You can also visit Intel’s web sit eat the address http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/ideinfup.htm
for more information on this problem.
Another thing you can do is run a program called REMIDEUP.EXE which
adds Removable Hard Drive support for Windows. You can search for the file
on your SyQuest cartridge or on the floppy disk. If you cannot find it
on your system, the file can be downloaded from Microsoft’s web site. It
can be confusing to navigate through there, however, so if you can’t find
it by searching for it, the exact link to the file is http://support.microsoft.com/support/downloads/dp2884.asp.
Once you have it downloaded, run it and allow it to update your files.
When it is complete, reboot your system to allow the changes to take effect.
If your hard drive controllers are conflicting, try the following: Go
to Start –> run and type “Regedit” and hit enter. Go to Edit, select Find,
and search for the word “NOIDE”. If you find an entry, delete it. The NOIDE
entry tells Windows that there are no IDE drives connected to the system,
therefore the computer comes up in 16-bit compatibility mode. Removing
this entry and rebooting should correct this problem.
You can also check for / add a line in your system.ini file called “RemovableIDE=TRUE”.
To do this, do the following: Go to Start –> Run and type “sysedit” and
hit enter. From here, click on the system.ini file and scroll down to the
section entitled “386 Enh.”. When you get there, look for a line that says
“RemovableIDE=TRUE”. If it’s not there, add it. It is very case sensitive,
so you may want to cut and paste it from here. Exit, saving your changes,
and reboot your system for the changes to take effect.
Go on ahead and get the latest version of the drivers from our web site
at http://www.syqt.com. Get the latest version to see if that corrects
your problem. On our web page, go to Support and click on Drivers / Utilities.
It will ask you which drive you have and how it is connected, as well as
what operating system you are using. Once you enter this information, click
on “List Drivers”. Most likely, you will want to get the hard drive download
as opposed to the Single Install Diskette, so download the first two files
listed to a directory. Once you have them downloaded, run them. They will
self-extract several files including an install.exe file. Run this file
to install the new version of the utilities.
Cheater Driver/Utilities
update:
Go on ahead and get the latest version of the drivers from our web site
at http://www.syqt.com. Get the latest
version to see if that corrects your problem. On our web page, go to Support
and click on Drivers / Utilities. It will ask you which drive you have
and how it is connected, as well as what operating system you are using.
Once you have entered this information, click on “List Drivers”. Most likely,
you will want to get the hard drive download as opposed to the Single Install
Diskette.
Download the first two files listed to a directory. Once you have them
downloaded, run them. They will self-extract several files including an
install.exe file. Run this file to install the new version of the utilities.
That error is rather general and not too descriptive on the actual problem.
First thing’s first, however, we need to find out if the drive is installed
correctly. Verify that the drive is listed in My Computer and is accessible.
You should see a Removable Disk listed, double-click on it to open it,
then drag and drop a file to the drive to make sure it is accessible.
If all of the above works OK, there here are three things you should
do. First of all, go to start –> settings –> control panel, click on
System, click on Device Manager and open up Disk Drives. You will see a
couple of Generic hard drives listed, one of them will be the SyQuest drive.
It may or may not come up as a Generic hard drive depending on your configuration,
so you may have to guess… 🙂
Highlight it and click properties, then click on the settings tab. At
the bottom of the screen it will tell you what drive you are working with
so you can double-check to make sure you are indeed working with the SyQuest
drive. If the INT 13 is not checked, check it. If INT 13 is checked but
grayed out, that’s fine.
Another thing you can do is run a program called REMIDEUP.EXE which
adds Removable Hard Drive support for Windows. You can search for the file
on your SyQuest cartridge or on the floppy disk. If you cannot find it
on your system, the file can be downloaded from Microsoft’s web site. It
can be confusing to navigate through there, however, so if you can’t find
it by searching for it, the exact link to the file is http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q153/4/71.asp.
When you find it / download it, run it and allow it to update your files.
When it is complete, reboot your system to allow the changes to take effect.
Last but not least, go on ahead and get the latest version of the drivers
from our web site at http://www.syqt.com.
Get the latest version to see if that corrects your problem. On our web
page, go to Support and click on Drivers / Utilities. It will ask you which
drive you have and how it is connected, as well as what operating system
you are using. Once you enter this information, click on “List Drivers”.
Most likely, you will want to get the hard drive download as opposed to
the Single Install Diskette.
To install the new Firmware, boot into Windows ’95, open the SyQuest
Win’95 utilities, click on the control button and select “Update Drive
Code”. It will then ask you for the location of the .key and .bin files
that were sent to you. Specify the directory you saved the files to and
click OK. It will then proceed to update your FirmWare. This process could
take up to a minute, so please be patient. Once the update is complete,
reboot your system for the changes to take effect.
First off, boot into Safe Mode. If you are using Windows ’98, it is
relatively simple to do this — all you have to do is hold down the CTRL
key while you boot. If you have Windows 95, you will want to hit F8 as
soon as it says “Starting Windows ’95” in the upper left hand corner. It
only says it for a split second, so you may want to hit F8 repeatedly as
your computer starts up. If you get the blue screen that has the Windows
logo on it, reboot and try to hit F8 sooner. It can be a pain but.. 🙂
Once you hit F8, it will bring up a boot menu. You want to select option
# 3, “Safe Mode”.
It’s not normal to get a protection error when you connect our drive,
but fortunately there’s a fix for it. Windows complains when the Parallel
Port mode doesn’t match the device attached to it, so we need to change
that.
To change your Parallel Port Mode, do the following: You need to get
into your system CMOS / BIOS /Setup. You can most likely get into your
BIOS by hitting F1 or Delete at start up. As soon as you start your computer,
you should see a line at the bottom of the screen that says something to
the effect of “Press F1 to enter Setup.” In place of F1, hit whatever key
it tells you to.
Once you get in setup, change the mode for the Parallel Port to EPP.
If this mode is not available, you can also try SPP or Bi-Directional (although
these may not work as well or as fast as EPP would). Experiment with the
different modes to find out which one works the best, but for the most
part EPP is what you want to set it to.
If you are still getting a Protection Error, go to Safe Mode by hitting
F8 as it boots up. You want to hit it as soon as it says “Starting windows”
in the upper left hand corner. It only says it for a split second, so you
may want to hit F8 repeatedly as your computer starts up. If you get the
blue screen that has the Windows logo on it, you missed it into Safe Mode,
hit OK to the message it pops up on the screen. Go to Start, Settings,
select Control Panel. Double click on the System icon and select the Device
Manager Tab. When you get there, select SCSI Adapters, open it up and select
the SyQuest drive. Click on Properties and select the settings tab. In
the Adapter Settings field, add the following switches: /DE /DI. If there’s
anything else on that line (say, /w95) replace it with the /DE /DI switches.
Click on OK and then OK once again to exit out of the Device Manager. It
will ask you to reboot your system, hit yes. When you get back into windows
(which should boot normally), the drive should be listed in My Computer.
Verify that it is accessible by copying a file over to the drive.
Drive letter reassignment,
IDE:
There are three ways to reassign drive letters. The first is to go to
Start –> Settings –> Control Panel –> System –> Device Manager –>
Disk Drives –> Properties –> Settings. Once you get in the settings for
the SyQuest under Disk Drives, change both the Start and End drive letters
to the letter you want to assign the drive to. If these are grayed out,
there are other ways to reassign the drive letters.
The second way is to change the BIOS mode for your drive to NONE. This
is a neat trick that makes Windows ’95 use drivers to run the SyQuest.
You can most likely get into your BIOS by hitting F1 or Delete at start
up. As soon as you start your computer, you should see something at the
bottom of the screen that says something to the effect of “Press F1 to
enter Setup.” In place of F1, hit whatever key it tells you to.
Once you get in setup, change the mode for the SyQuest drive to NONE.
This is different on every system, so you may have to hunt and peck to
find it, but find the location of your SyQuest drive (For instance, Secondary
Master). Somewhere in there is an option to change the “mode”. There are
3 normal modes available: AUTO, USER, and NONE (or Disabled). You want
to change this to NONE or Disabled.
Exit saving your changes (normally F10) and boot into Windows. If it’s
not listed as the drive letter you want it at and you STILL can’t reassign
your drive letters through Device Manager / Disk Drives, try formatting
a cartridge as an Extended Partition. This third way will *absolutely*
work, however it will destroy the data on the cartridge, so be sure to
use either a blank cartridge or copy the information on the drive to your
hard drive first.
You can use the SyQuest Windows utilities to do this. Open up Utilities,
select Format, select the drive you want to format (most likely the only
one listed will be the SyQuest drive), click OK, verify the LED is active
by clicking on the TEST LED button, then click OK. Click on Partition /
Format cartridge for DOS, then click on Customized DOS partitions. Once
again, this will erase all information on the cartridge, so proceed with
caution.
Select Delete All partitions and click OK. This will erase all data
on the cartridge. Go back into Customized DOS partitions, select the Create
an Extended Partition option and click OK to start the format process.
You may consider checking the “Skip Scan” button to speed up the format
process. Once the format is complete, reboot (shut down your system completely)
for the changes to take effect.
Reassign when formatted
as Primary:
There are a few things to keep in mind when working with hard drive
partitions and drive letter assignments: DOS, and more or less your computer
in general, will recognize all Primary partitions before it will recognize
an extended partition. The first partition on your hard drive (drive C:)
is a primary partition. Any other partitions (E:, F:, etc.) will most likely
be extended partitions. Since our cartridges are by default formatted as
a single primary partition, they will be placed in front of your extended
partitions. This means that if you boot with a cartridge in, it will bump
the rest of your drive letters down one letter. Removing the cartridge
and rebooting reinstates the drive letters, however the drive may be inaccessible.
One way to fix this is to change the BIOS mode for your drive to NONE.
This is a neat trick that makes Windows use drivers to run the SyQuest.
You can most likely get into your BIOS by hitting F1 or Delete at start
up. As soon as you start your computer, you should see something at the
bottom of the screen that says something to the effect of “Press F1 to
enter Setup.” In place of F1, hit whatever key it tells you to.
Once you get in setup, change the mode for the SyQuest drive to NONE.
This is different on every system, so you may have to hunt and peck to
find it, but find the location of your SyQuest drive (For instance, Secondary
Master). Somewhere in there is an option to change the “mode”. There are
3 normal modes available: AUTO, USER, and NONE (or Disabled). You want
to change this to NONE or Disabled.
Exit saving your changes (normally F10) and boot into Windows. If it’s
not listed as the drive letter you want it at, formatting a cartridge as
an Extended Partition. This will *absolutely* work, however it will destroy
the data on the cartridge, so be sure to use either a blank cartridge or
copy the information on the drive to your hard drive first.
You can use the SyQuest Windows ’95 utilities to do this. Open up Utilities,
select Format, select the drive you want to format (most likely the only
one listed will be the SyQuest drive), click OK, verify the LED is active
by clicking on the TEST LED button, then click OK. Click on Partition /
Format cartridge for DOS, then click on Customized DOS partitions. Once
again, this will erase all information on the cartridge, so proceed with
caution.
Select Delete All partitions and click OK. This will erase all data
on the cartridge. Go back into Customized DOS partitions, select the Create
an Extended Partition option and click OK to start the format process.
You may consider checking the “Skip Scan” button to speed up the format
process. Once the format is complete, reboot (shut down your system completely)
for the changes to take effect.
Drive letter assignment,
Parallel:
If your SyQuest drive has reassigned your drive letters, try the following
procedure to reassign your drive letters. First, click on Start –> Settings
–> Control Panel, select System, click on the Device Manager tab, and
select Disk Drives. At this point, you will most likely see the SyQuest
listed. Highlight the SyQuest, select properties and then click on the
Settings tab.
Once you get in the settings for the SyQuest under Disk Drives, change
both the Start and End drive letters to the letter you want to assign the
drive to. Click OK and then OK once again to exit out of Device Manager.
It will ask you to reboot your system, hit yes. When your system comes
back up, the SyQuest will be set at the new drive letter.
In answer to your question, yes it’s entirely possible to format the
cartridge as FAT32. It’s not necessary, however I can see it as desirable
because of the smaller cluster size. One thing to note – SyQuest does not
directly support formatting cartridges in FAT32 as this is not supported
by our utilities, so unfortunately we will not be able to help you on this
endeavor.
Starter Cartridge information:
The starter Cartridge contains over 700 Megs worth of data, including
DrawPlus and Heat, which are approx. 260 Megs each. You may want to delete
some of these programs. You can also format the cartridge, which will wipe
out everything but will clear out the contents of the disk and give you
just under a Gig of data to work with. You can also purchase another cartridge
for your drive if you wish to keep a copy of the ShareWare that is included
with the cartridge.
DOS
installation instead of Windows ’95 installation:
This is just a guess, but I’m pretty sure you ran the DOS installation
instead of the typical Windows installation which does two things. First,
it puts you in what’s called “Real mode” on your SyQuest drive. If you
right click on My Computer and select “Properties”, then click on the Performance
tab, it will most likely say “Some drives are in 16-bit compatibility mode”.
Second, it adds 2 lines in either your Config.sys or Autoexec.bat files.
They say something to the effect of “epatsyq.sys” and “sqppdrvr.sys” in
your config.sys or 2 lines in your autoexec.bat file that start with “Sqload”.
You want to remark these out since they are forcing you to MS-DOS compatibility
mode (which means you won’t be able to use the utilities or swap cartridges).
To remove these DOS drivers, go to start –> Run, type Sysedit and hit
enter. Click on the Autoexec.bat box, click insert the letters REM and
a space in front of the two lines that start with Sqload. Once you have
done this, restart your computer, and run the normal installation through
Windows. This will add the SyQuest driver to your Device Manager under
SCSI controllers and will initialize the drive normally.
If it happens to lock up your system, reboot into Windows and do the
following: Right click on My Computer and select Properties, then click
on the Device Manager Tab. When you get there, select SCSI Adapters, open
it up and select the SyQuest drive. Click on Properties and click on the
settings tab. In the Adapter Settings field, add the following switches:
/DE /DI. If there’s anything else on that line (say, /w95), replace it
with the /DE /DI switches. Click on OK and then OK once again to exit out
of the Device Manager. It will ask you to reboot your system, hit yes.
When you get back into Windows, the drive should be listed in My Computer.
You should now be able to swap cartridges without rebooting and you should
be able to use the utilities as well.
The Parallel Port versions of SyQuest drives are not supported as a
boot drives, however it can be done…
First, create a Windows Emergency diskette. You can do this through
Control Panel –> Add / Remove Software –> Startup Disk. Copy the files
epatsyq.sys and sqppdrvr.sys to the floppy disk. They are not very big,
so they should fit. These files should be on your hard drive, but if they
are not, they will definitely be on your floppy disk (most likely in the
DOS folder). Also copy the file Himem.sys (which can be found in your Windows
directory) to the floppy if it’s not already there.
Once you have this, edit your config.sys file on the floppy disk to
include the drivers. If you have a SparQ drive, these are the drivers you
will want to use:
device=a:\himem.sys
devicehigh=a:\epatsyq.sys
devicehigh=a:\sqppdrvr.sys
If you have a SyJet drive, use the following:
device=a:\himem.sys
devicehigh=a:\epst.sys
devicehigh=a:\sqdriver.sys
Note that you may already have the Himem.sys in there as well as some other
lines. You can probably leave these in there. Also note that these ARE
the DOS drivers, and if you expect to use the drive in Windows (as in actually
boot into windows off of the drive), you will be in 16-bit compatibility
mode on the drive. This isn’t good, but you can get away with it 🙂 . For
the most part, I would advise that you just use the drive to boot to a
DOS prompt, and then copy your data over from there (however your long
file names will not be copied). You can figure out that on your own 🙂
.
When you want to boot off of the SyQuest, insert the floppy disk you
made and make sure our drive is up and running before you turn on your
system. Note that this is not a perfect fix, and we don’t actually support
a Parallel Port drive as a boot device, so if you notice erratic system
performance, keep this in mind.
Mouse locks
up in Windows when copying files:
This is a problem I had even on a Pentium 233. From my experience, changing
the Parallel Port mode to EPP can speed this up significantly, but you
may still notice some system performance fall off when you copy large files
to your Parallel Port. You may notice that the mouse still locks up even
after changing the Parallel Port mode. This has more to do with the way
Windows handles ports / communications and less with the way the drivers
actually work.
This is VERY simple to fix — it will actually surprise you when you
find the answer. You’re most likely using a program called “Tweak UI” which
is preventing the drive from being seen in My Computer / Explorer even
though it is there and is accessible everywhere else.
You need to tell Tweak UI that you want it to display the drive in My
Computer and Explorer. To do that, go to Control Panel, click on Tweak
UI, click on the My Computer tab and put a check in the box that our drive
is assigned to. If you don’t know which drive letter is the SyJet drive,
just click all of them that have a drive icon next to them. Exit out of
Tweak UI and reboot your system. The drive will then be listed normally
in My Computer.
This does work with ady booted into Windows, do so. Insert the SyQuest
installation diskette, go to start –> run, type a:\visit95.exe and hit
enter. It will take about 15 seconds or so to load the driver. Once the
operation is complete you will be able to access the drive normally through
My Computer — It will show up as “Removable Disk x:” where x is the next
available drive letter. You can access the drive just like you would any
hard drive, aside from the fact that you can swap cartridges.
You can use a program called “VISIT” which will allow you to access
the drive through DOS without doing the Windows installation. All you need
to do is boot to DOS, insert the SyQuest installation disk, type A:\visit.com
and hit enter. VISIT will then load and you will be able to access the
drive.
Unfortunately, we do not have your original question. Please re-send
your message with all previous correspondence between SyQuest and yourself
so we will be better able to serve you. If you could please contact us
either VIA E-Mail or through our Telephone Tech Support at the number 970-346-0233,
it would be greatly appreciated.
Our tech support is indeed free for your first call. If you need to
contact us, our toll-free number is 1-800-394-6374. We are open from 6:00
A.M. to 8:00 P.M. Mountain Standard Time Monday through Friday, and 9:00
A.M. to 4:00 P.M. on weekends. If you need to call back about the same
issue, or if you call about a SyQuest related problem (even if it is a
different issue), you will not be charged.
Drive will not eject
cartridges:
Sometimes, a new drive will not eject cartridges smoothly. The drive
may spin down, the activity light will go out, then the drive will just
sit there and click. Fixing this is normally just a matter of allowing
the drive to “break in”. What you should do is manually eject the cartridge
a couple of times. Hit the eject button, and when it starts to click, briefly
power off the drive and lift up on the cartridge. If you have an internal
EIDE drive, it is safe to manually eject the cartridge when the drive is
not spinning, however if the drive is engaged and you have a solid activity
light, do not manually eject the cartridge.
Thanks!
A.C.
******
(Formerly) SyQuest Tech Support.