Syquest EZflyer with WindowsXP laptop

**mikeys** · December 29th, 2006, 09:11 PM

I've got a real hairy problem and am hoping one of you guys at Windrivers Forum can help me solve it.

I need to run a Syquest EZflyer 230Mb parallel-port cartridge backup unit with my WindowsXP laptop. I have a lot of important files backed up to the Syquest and my Win98 computer, that it was originally connected to, isn't working.

I got the last driver files - PHDW2K.inf and EPHDW2K.SYS - written by SCM Micro (who merged with Shuttle, the original driver designer for Syquest) while they were still available. They can also be downloaded from a place called syquestrepair.com. These drivers were written for Win2000 and are supposed to also work with WinXP. However, my computer doesn't recognize the Syquest drive when it's plugged into the parallel port, either on boot or hot plug. Device Manager and the Add New Hardware Wizard can't find them either.

Needless to say, the Syquest unit and the drivers aren't supported any more, as Syquest went out of business long ago and SCM isn't interested. Syquestrepair.com has some setup info on their website, but they don't know what to do if a computer doesn't recognize the hardware.

A fella named Stephen Smith, who has done extensive work with the Shuttle and SCM drivers for parallel port peripherals, especially the card readers, has some info on the HD adapter drivers at http://wa8lmf.net/D700/index.htm; but, once again, his notes aren't much help if the computer can't find the peripheral. He does say that if the usual procedure doesn't work "enter the motherboard BIOS setup utility..., select "Integrated Peripherals" or something similar, and ensure that the built-in LPT port is LPT1 set to an address of 378 with IRQ7.", and SyquestRepair says that the Parallel Printer Port should be set up in BIOS as EPP. Well, I spent the past two days trying every possible combination of BIOS settings for the Parallel Port, and I tried
everything you can do using the Add New Hardware Wizard, but my computer still couldn't find the Syquest device.

In Device Manager, on the Resources tab of Parallel Printer Port properties, there's a checkbox for Legacy Plug And Play, and if I check it the computer does find a new hardware device on the next boot, but it calls the Syquest unit an IOmega drive and gives it an error message. Device Manager then lists an IOmega drive under Disk Drives, but says it isn't working because the driver is wrong.

There are a lot of peripheral devices listed in the Add New Hardware Wizard, but the Syquest drives are not among them. However, I did try force loading the ephdw2k.inf and ephdw2k.sys driver files using the Add New Hardware Wizard, which

has an entry stored in it for an "SCM PPort CF Adapter", in the section for SCM Micro, so I used that. The files appeared to load alright, and there is now a new entry for "SCM PPort HD Adapter" in the "Manufacturers and Models" list of hardware devices of the Wizard. But for some reason when I get the Wizard to install the files and then check in Device Manager, although there's a listing for "SCM PPort HD Adapter" it has a yellow exclamation mark next to it and the properties popup says "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device." Which is weird, because ephdw2k.sys does seem to be loaded, since it appears on the Driver tab for the device.

It's all extremely frustrating. I can't understand why the plug and play search on boot can't see the Syquest drive. I've tried every combination for the Parallel Port in BIOS. Is it possible that the Parallel Port device in my computer is so configured that it just doesn't see that the Syquest is there? That hardly seems likely with all thoe configuration choices in the BIOS I've tried and all the peripheral devices listed in the Add New Hardware Wizard. I just can't figure it out.

Anybody have an idea?

Mike S.

**CCT** · December 29th, 2006, 09:27 PM

"I need to run a Syquest EZflyer 230Mb parallel-port cartridge backup unit with my WindowsXP laptop. I have a lot of important files backed up to the Syquest and my Win98 computer, that it was originally connected to, isn't working."

I would think you need to contact a shop or friend that can extract your stuff using Win98, then copy it to cd or another drive that is XP compatible.

**mikeys** · December 30th, 2006, 12:48 PM

Hi, CCT.

You're right, of course, that does seem like the best solution. But for two reasons I want to put that off as a last ditch way out: I have a lot of EZflyer cartridges, both full ones with in total various gigabytes of data, and new ones that I invested in and would like to make use of; and I don't know anyone who is still using Windows 98.

MikeyS

**CCT** · December 31st, 2006, 09:04 AM

Best I could find:

http://www.syquestrepair.com/winxp.html

**mikeys** · January 2nd, 2007, 10:35 PM

Thanks, CCT, but I already know about Syquest Repair, and, once again, their procedure depends on the computer recognizing the device, which in my case it doesn't do.

I found the following on an old Syquest forum that's still on the web. You think it might work?:

"- In Win2k/XP, go to
Hardware Device Manager.
- Expand Ports (COM & LPT) and Double Click on Printer Port.
- Click on Port Settings Tab.
- Click on Never use an interrupt and
Check Enable Legacy plug and play detection.
- Click Ok. If the System finds an IOmega device just cancel out.
- Expand Disk drives in Device Manager and uninstall Iomega driver if it was already installed by the system.
- Close Device Manager, restart the system, and boot using a DOS Boot Floppy.
- Run VISIT.com from the Syquest DOS diskette (supplied with the EZflyer).
- Run SYQFLIPP.exe from the Syquest DOS Diskette.
- Reboot the computer into XP/2K.
- When it finds the new drive use the drivers downloaded from SCM MicroSystems.
- If it does not find your drive, go to System via Control Panel and Open Device Manager and scan for hardware changes."

Does this make sense?

Mike

**MobilePCPhysician** · January 2nd, 2007, 10:52 PM

That sounds like the thing to do. however, is your laptop a fat32 or ntfs filesystem? If it's ntfs, the dos bootdisk will not see the ntfs partition.I would then try running it from a cmd line, inside XP.

**mikeys** · January 3rd, 2007, 03:47 AM

Hi, MobilePCPhysician. Thanks for posting.

I checked using the Disk Manager in Management tools and it says it's NTFS. Too bad. I don't think the cmd line is going to work with the Syquest DOS diskette. I think I need to be directly in DOS, because the Syquest setup files are executables and, as far as i know, cmd will only run internal DOS executables. I may be wrong. I can try it. But it doesn't sound right and I may do harm.

Is it necessary for the DOS bootdisk to be able to read the NTFS partition on the hard drive? I wasn't thinking of running the Syquest setup files from the hard disk, but pulling the bootdisk once booted up and replacing it with the Syquest diskkette. Or won't i be able to boot at all?

I'm afraid I don't understand too much about this sort of operation, as you can probably tell.

If I can't do a DOS bootdisk-Syquest diskette installation, how about creating a fake fat32 partition just for the installation?

MikeyS

**NooNoo** · January 3rd, 2007, 04:58 AM

You can try the disk swap out without a problem... it will just fail it it can't do anything... alternatively boot with a disk that can see ntfs and then go from there. If you use the bootable cdrom option, then you can run the files from floppy or tuck them into the iso before burning the iso.

cmd will run anything that is executable, it depends on the executable as to whether it will run or not.

It looks like the visit.com and the syqflipp.exe (just from the tone of the post) may need to run from diskette.

**mikeys** · January 3rd, 2007, 11:17 AM

Hi, NooNoo. I was hoping I would eventually get in touch with you. I noticed that you dealt with this sort of Syquest problem on another forum in 2004, where a user named Prissi laid out an installation procedure that worked only once due to the switchback from legacy to plug-and-play (or was it the other way round <grin>?).

Anyway, re your suggestions:
- I haven't tried to boot with an old Win98 boot disk because everyone says it won't read my NTFS, and also because I frankly don't trust the Win98 boot disk. Maybe I should try that first, though?
- If the cmd line in WinXP will run any DOS program, even from a floppy, why have people had trouble using the Syquest DOS installation diskette? I read on the Syquest Support Forum (http://members3.boardhost.com/syquestsupport/index.html) that the cmd in XP won't run the Syquest floppy install file or active.com. I haven't tried anything others tried that didn't work because I have a fear of crashes and OS freeze-up. My laptop isn't all that stable. The last time it froze up, the processor got into some kind of loop where it ran at 100% forever and i had to re-install the OS. I'm trying to avoid that

.
- I'm looking at the website from your link. Which of the various versions of the NTFS reader should I download? The "Self-extracting bootable floppy disk creator for NTFS reader"? Would that be better than using my old Win98 boot disk with ReadNTFS.exe on it? (I don't have a CD-ROM burner around, otherwise that would surely be the way to go.)
- This may sound coo-coo, but why won't the Syquest WinNT installation diskette work in WinXP? (I have the idea that WinNT programs should run in WinXP. Don't know where I got that from.)
- Similarly, why can't I run the Syquest Win95 installation diskette using the WinXP Compatability Wizard? In all the discussions I've read of the Syquest PPort Drive/WinXP problem, I've never seen a mention of this possibility. Maybe the answer is that it's just going around in circles: you can install the driver programs, but when you boot back up in XP it won't find the Syquest drive.
- One last thing before awaiting your reply to this post: I found a way of getting "SCM PPort HD Adapter" into the Add Hardware Wizard on my machine. I ran the wizard and went through all the screens until I got to the last one where it lists all the manufacturers and devices, then highlighted SCM Micro and clicked "have Disk", pointed to the folder on my hard drive containing ephdw2k.sys and ephdw2k.inf, and the wizard added "SCM PPort HD Adapter" as a new SCM device while loading ephdw2k.sys. On re-boot, the SCM HD adapter was listed in the device manager, but with that nasty yellow exclamation mark, and Properties said that Windows couldn't load the driver, even though I could see that it did get installed in Windows\system32\drivers. I can't figure out why, if the driver is there and the PPort is accessed and configured right, this SCM PPort HD Adapter won't find the Syquest drive. Is it just a problem of WinXP not allowing the PPort to see what it wants to see? If that's the case, there must be a registry key blocking it, no?

Well, I hope I haven't muddied the waters too much. I'll follow your advice and do whatever you say in your reply to this.

MikeyS

**NooNoo** · January 3rd, 2007, 12:39 PM