Roger. I'm still in. All 2000. I have no TA for you, but I do have some good news.
Some background: I've been in the market for a motherboard for a month or so. I noticed at Frys that all the MOBOs have an Award BIOS. They have the manuals out on display with the boards, so I perused them looking for one that supports bootable ZIP drive. To my chagrin, none of them were documented as doing so, but a few did mention being able to boot to LS-120. One of those, ASUS, I emailed last week asking if the LS-120 setting also boots a ZIP. No reply as of yet. Two nights ago, I got impatient and took the plunge. I bought an IWILL brand MOBO. It's doc shows combinations for the following boot devices: A, C, D, E, CDROM, SCSI and LS-120.
Now the good news: the actual setting for LS-120 is "Zip/LS-120" (or something like that), and not just LS-120. That makes sense to me, since all it is probably really concerned with is overcoming the old 32MB limit for floppy capacity. I wonder how the various Zip protection and other Tools dependent features work. I suspect one must ensure the disk is not read-protected for booting to work, and thus even bootable Zip is ultimately dependent on Zip Tools to ensure proper funtioning at boot-up time. I will check it out in the next few days and report back my findings. I'm sure they will be better received than the last findings from me.
BTW, all the MOBOs which Frys has on display use an Award BIOS. Not the same one, since they are all customized for the particular board, but it is reasonable to expect certain common features, such as boot drive flexibility in the latest ones.
Thus, bootable Zip seems to be a reality for the after-market. You don't have to buy a new system (using the Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Rel 6, or the AsusTek BIOS) to get bootable Zip.
P.S. Zip sales at Frys is hard to get a handle on. The PP refurbished and new Zips seem to go quickly and get restocked just as quickly. My rough guess is a palatte a week. But I am not in there every day at closing time, which is what it would take to get an accurate estimate. I am trying to learn their computer's inventory inquiry system by asking them to look up various things. Unfortunately, the terminals are in high-traffic areas. And one of the guys knows what I am after, and watches me closely when I'm near his. They are networked, such that once you enter the SKU, you can see the inventory in every Frys store, even the mother store in San Jose. Oh to be able to hack my way in from home. :0) |
