_The ZppA User's Guide_

Copyright (C) 1997 Bluesky Innovations
All rights reserved.


1. Features:

The ZppA is installed in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of Drive C and is loaded 
before the Operating System. It will automatically detect if a Zip drive is 
connected. If a Zip drive is not connected, the software will still install 
itself so that you can connect up a drive later. This is useful for notebook 
users or people who constantly move their parallel port Zip drives around(*).

The ZppA configures the Zip drive as a large floppy drive. This can be either 
Drive A or Drive B and is selectable by the user at boot time. When the Zip is 
configured as Drive A, you have an option of booting from a Zip disk as if the 
Zip drive were like any floppy drive.

If a floppy drive is present, the Zip drive is configured as Drive B by default. If the Zip drive is configured as Drive A, the floppy will be accessible as Drive B.

If no floppy drive is present, the Zip drive will automatically be installed 
as Drive A(*).

You can create a bootable rescue floppy diskette which can be used to 
load the software should the hard disk get corrupted or damaged. This is so 
that you can still boot from a Zip disk which can contain all the necessary 
diagnostic tools or even Windows 95(*).

The ZppA includes full EPP support for fast parallel port transfers(*).

The ZppA can either work with or replace Iomega's software drivers. It will 
occupy between 4 to 5 KBytes of main memory when it is loaded.

Note that The ZppA is ONLY for Parallel Port Zip drives. It is NOT for ATA/ATAPI/IDE
or SCSI Zip drives.

(*) Features only available with registered version.



2. Installation:

The installation program is called INSTALL.EXE. It must be run in MSDOS mode.
Running INSTALL.EXE in a DOS box under Win95 will give you an 'installation 
error' message.

Our suggestion is to run INSTALL.EXE from a diskette.

INSTALL has several options:
	- Install The ZppA into Drive C
	- Uninstall The ZppA
	- Create Rescue Diskette (Only available with Registered Version)



"Install The ZppA into Drive C" first saves the critical information in your
Drive C before installing The ZppA. This is so that should the installation 
go wrong (very unlikely), you will still be able to restore the state of your
hard disk. The partition information is stored in a file called PART.BIN. This
file should be stored in a diskette with a copy of INSTALL.EXE.

If a copy of PART.BIN already exists, you will be prompted if you would like
to overwrite this file. You should answer N(o) unless you have repartitioned
your hard disk since the last time you ran INSTALL.EXE.

Then The ZppA program will be written into the MBR of your hard disk. You
will need to reboot to actually run The ZppA.

"Uninstall The ZppA" restores the partition information previously
saved in PART.BIN and removes The ZppA from your hard disk.

"Create Rescue Diskette" allows you to install The ZppA into a diskette.
This is useful if a virus program destroys The ZppA installation and you 
need to access/boot from your Zip drive. Installing Windows 95 after The
ZppA has been installed will also overwrite The ZppA.

To navigate the options, you use the arrow keys and the ENTER key to select.
The ESC key will exit the INSTALL program.

	


3. Booting with The ZppA:

When you boot with The ZppA, you will hear a beep. You should then see the 
copyright message.

The ZppA will be scanning for all attached Zip drives. It will scan the
available parallel ports and report the number of Parallel Port Zip drives 
found. It will also indicate the transfer mode that will be used i.e. Nibble 
or bidirectional. If the parallel port also supports EPP mode correctly, you
will see a message saying that EPP is used. Note that EPP is only available
with the registered version of the software.

The ZppA will be able to detect Zip drives that are empty i.e. without
disks in them. The registered version of The ZppA will also install itself even
a Zip drive is not detected. This is useful if you need to reconnect a
Zip without having to reboot your PC. The evaluation version will not
install The ZppA into memory if no Zip drive is detected.

As a default, The ZppA will install the first detected Zip drive as
Drive B.

If you do not have a floppy drive, the registered version will install the 
Zip drive as A:. The evaluation version will not work without a floppy
drive.

After you hear the beep, you can press the F10 key for other options.

The ZppA Options Menu will provide the following options:

	1. Install Zip(TM) as Drive A
	2. Install Zip(TM) as Drive A & BOOT
	3. Install Zip(TM) as Drive B
	4. Do not load ZppA

Use the arrow keys to navigate and the ENTER key to select option. The ESC key 
will quit the Options Menu and continue the boot process.

"Install Zip(TM) as Drive A" will install the Zip(TM) drive as Drive A. In the 
evaluation version of the software, if you have a floppy drive, you not be able 
to access the floppy drive. In the registered version, the floppy drive will 
be accessible as Drive B:.

"Install Zip(TM) as Drive A & BOOT" will install the Zip(TM) drive as above and
will boot from it.

"Install Zip(TM) as Drive B" will install the Zip(TM) drive as Drive B. You 
will still be able to access your floppy drive as Drive A.

"Do not load ZppA" will not load The ZppA into memory. You will not be able
to access the Zip(TM) drive except with Iomega's Zip(TM) utility programs.

After the detection sequence, there will be a short pause and then the
operating system will be loaded. If you have multiple MBR programs (like 
Power Boot), the next MBR program will be loaded.



4. Using The ZppA with MSDOS & Early Versions of Windows95 :

Due to limitations of MSDOS and early versions of Windows 95, you cannot
easily boot from Zip(TM) disk even with The ZppA.

The first limitation is the inability of the native MSDOS/Win95 drivers to
recognise that Drive A/B can be larger than 32MBytes. Hence you will be
limited to 32MBytes if you use MSDOS or early versions of Win95 with the
Zip(TM) drive as Drive A/B.

However, 32MBytes is still a lot of storage if you want to boot an operating
system from it. MSDOS itself will fit inside 32M with possibly enough room
to spare for Windows 3.1. Also, a large bulk of the operating system files 
can still reside on the hard disk.

The attached programs, MAKE32 and MAKE32D, will allow you to format a Zip(TM) 
disk as a 32MByte disk.

If you want to make a bootable MSDOS Zip disk, use MAKE32D to make it.

Zip disks created with MAKE32 are also useable (read/write) with MSDOS, but 
cannot be used to boot MSDOS.

Zip disks created with MAKE32 or MAKE32D are useable with The ZppA/Z-pA
under Windows 95 OSR2 and also with Iomega's drivers.

The second limitation is the inability of older format programs e.g. those
that come with MSDOS or Windows 95 to recognise that the disk in Drive A/B
can have more than 2 heads. Hence trying to format a Zip disk in Drive A/B
will result in an error.

If you ever need to format a Zip disk under MSDOS or earlier versions of
Windows95, do it with IOMEGA's drivers. 

To make a Zip disk bootable, use the SYSZIP utility found at: 
http://www.blueskyinnovations.com or look at section 6: 'Installing Operating
System Files'.



5. Using The ZppA with Windows95:

5.1 Floppy Drive Order and OSR2

If you have Windows95 OSR2, you will be able to use the full 100MB of the 
Zip drive as a big floppy.

Windows95 OSR2 and its utilities (like SYS.COM and FORMAT.COM) recognise super
large floppies. You can use all 100MBytes of a Zip(TM) disk with The ZppA.

The only limitation with OSR2 is that if you have configured the Zip(TM) drive
as Drive B, you will not see it in the Windows95 desktop. Similarly, if
you have configured the Zip(TM) drive as Drive A, when the Windows95 desktop 
loads Drive A will revert back to your standard 1.44M/1.2M floppy drive.

To overcome this, do the following:
	a. Go to:
           My Computer|Control Panel|System|Device Manager

	b. Double-click on 'Floppy disk controllers'

	c. Double-click on 'Standard Floppy Disk Controller'

	d. Click on 'Disable in this hardware profile'

When you reboot, you will be able to see both your standard 1.44M/1.2M floppy
drive and the Zip(TM) drive configured as a floppy drive.

Performance will not be affected.  This is because hard disk performance is
still 32-bit. 

The interesting thing is that this method of accessing the Parallel Port Zip(TM)
drive under Windows95 is very much faster than using Iomega's 32-bit drivers.


5.2 Installing Windows 95 OSR2 onto a Zip disk

Check out http://www.blueskyinnovations.com/win95.html for tips on how
to install the complete Windows 95 OSR2 onto a Zip disk.





6. Install Operating System Files:

There are four ways of installing the operating system files into a Zip(TM) 
disk from which you want to boot:
	
	1. Download SYSZIP.ZIP from 
	http://www.blueskyinnovations.com/syszip.html
        This utility will copy all necessary Win95/MSDOS system files to a
        Zip disk so that it will be bootable.

	2. Run IOMEGA's Guest.Exe program. This will install the Zip(TM) drive 
	as a hard drive e..g. Drive D. If you are using with MSDOS or early 
	versions of Windows 95, run MAKE32. Run SYS.COM to copy over the system
	files e.g. SYS D:

	3. Get a blank Zip(TM) disk. If you are using with MSDOS or early 
	versions of Windows 95, run MAKE32. You will then have to copy the 
	system files to the Zip(TM) disk in the following order:
			IO.SYS
			MSDOS.SYS
			COMMAND.COM
			DRVSPACE.BIN

	Before you can copy the files, you have to make the files visible. To 
	do this, use the ATTRIB command: ATTRIB -R -H -S <filename>.

	For example,
		ATTRIB -R -H -S IO.SYS
		COPY IO.SYS B:		    < assuming Drive B is the Zip(TM) 
					      drive>
		ATTRIB +R +H +S IO.SYS	    < hide the file again >
		ATTRIB +R +H +S B:IO.SYS
	

	Do this for IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS AND DRVSPACE.BIN

	4. If you are running Windows95 OSR2 or later versions, simply run
	the SYS.COM program.

	Note : in some cases, you may need to configure the Zip drive as A: 
	before SYS.COM will run properly.



7. Hot Plugging

Although connecting up a Zip drive to a running computer is not recommended,
The ZppA supports hot plugging. 

You can plug a Zip drive, use it and then remove it. Attempts to access it
via Drive A or B when it is not connected will simply return a drive not
ready error message.



8. Compatibility:

The ZppA is resident in the Master Boot Record(MBR) of your hard disk. It will
not work with most other MBR programs including EZ-Drive.

It will work with Ontrack Disk Manager.

If you are using an MBR program like System Commander, you might want to know
that a similar program, Power Boot, is available now. Power Boot daisy chains 
to The ZppA. Check out http://www.blueskyinnovations.com for more details.

The ZppA has been tested with MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 95. Operation with
other operating systems will probably be limited due to the lack of
native drivers in other operating systems e.g. you *may* be able to
boot from the Zip(TM) drive but not access the drive as Drive A or B.

You can still run Guest or other IOMEGA drivers. These programs will install
the Zip(TM) drive as a hard drive but you will still be able to access the same
drive as either Drive A or B.



9. Problems:

As in any other program, there are probably bugs lying around.

Please send problem/bug reports, suggestions, critiques to:
	 support@blueskyinnovations.com

Check out the The Z-pA/ZppA FAQ at http://www.blueskyinnovations/zpafaq.html






Disclaimer:

Bluesky Innovations specifically disclaims all other warranties, expressed or 
implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability
and fitness of a particular purpose with respects to defects in the diskette
(if distributed on magnetic media) or documentation, and the program license
with respect to any particular application, use, or purpose. In no event
should Bluesky Innovations be liable for any loss of profit or any other 
damages, including but not limited to incidental, consequential, or other 
damages.

NOTE: The ZppA is NOT an Iomega Corporation product. Iomega Corporation has
not endorsed this product for use on or with their Zip(TM) drives.



ZIP is a trademark of Iomega Corporation
Disk Manager is a trademark of Ontrack Corporation
