OmniDrive Centronics - Systematic Trouble Shooting

If the OmniDrive does not work, one should check the following things:
 

• Power supply
• Parallel port
• Format issues (PC Card related)
   

 

Power Supply

Sometimes the power supply with the keyboard adaptor is not sufficient. This problem arises often with portable computers. In some cases it affects only operations that cause higher power consumption, e.g. spin-up of ATA hard disks, programming linear Flash Cards.

To check:

• The red LED should go on for a short time if you insert a PC card.
• It should go on if you access the card (e.g. via explorer, CSMForm etc..)
• It must not flicker if there is no access to the drive in progress.
• If this does not apply, please use the USB adaptor for power supply.

If this does not apply, please use the USB adaptor for power supply.

Parallel port

Problems with the OmniDrive can often be put down to communication problems on the parallel port, which may result in many strange effects.

To check:

• Check cable connections.
• If you have more than one parallel port, distrust the labels. Try the other.
• Do not forget to check the parallel port number in OmniControl.
• Insert a PC Card into the drive and launch OmniControl. The program should report a firmware version. If the field remains empty, there is a communications problem.
• Check the configuration of your parallel port in the BIOS setup of the PC. Prefer the standard settings for LPT1: Port 378h, IRQ7. The best performance can be reached in EPP mode. If your parallel port does not offer this mode, use SPP. Avoid mixed modes (ECP+EPP). Especially when you work with modern operating systems like WIN 2000 you should turn off ECP at the BIOS-Setup.
• Use OmniControl to lock the drivers LPT-mode to EPP if your parallel port  is an EPP port.
• Retry with SPP or SlowSPP

Format problems

Linear Flash Cards cannot be formatted directly. To use these cards as a DOS compatible media, a special Flash File System is required.

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Red LED is always off

The red LED does not signal the insertion of a PC Card nor does it signal a media access if I try to access the card 

OmniDrive before SNr.: 1858:

Possibly your PC Card does not comply to the PC Card ATA specification. Some older ATA cards had that problem.

You should only use the cards being listed in the documentation. Cards which are not listed will most likely work without problems but it is not possible to guarantee that.

In general: Check  power supply.

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Black Display

Display goes black as soon as the OmniDrive driver is loaded.In Win9x this will happen short before the login prompt is displayed. In Win NT a moment after the Login-Prompt. Sometimes, the mouse cursor remains visible.

In some PC's the parallel ports EPP registers overlap with registers of the graphics chipset.
Parallel ports usually use the following port resources:

0378h ... 037ch Standard LPT1
0278h ... 027ch Standard LPT2
03bch ... 03c0h Alternate LPT1

Use the device manager (Win 9x) or NT system diagnostics to check if there may be a conflict
Change the parallel port base address in the BIOS setup if possible.

 

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Red LED flickers

The red LED flickers as soon as a PC card is inserted. It is not possible to access the PC Card.

The power supply by the keyboard adaptor is insufficient.
 

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Drive not ready'

Explorer reports drive not ready, but there is definitely a card inserted.

Possibly you use the wrong driver. The OmniDrive STANDARD (yellow rings) works only with the STANDARD driver. The OmniDrive PROFESSIONAL (blue rings) works only with the PROFESSIONAL driver. Sometimes this is a symptom of  communications problems on the parallel port.

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Win95: Explorer hangs when formatting a PC Card.

When formatting a PC Card from the windows explorer the PC hangs with comletely garbled  display.
Problem does not occur when booting Windows NT.

This problem is caused by the background scanners of some anti virus programs. Use CSMForm or PCM to format PC Cards.
 

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NT/2000: OmniDrive does not work at PCI LPT card

The OmniDrive driver refuses to load. But a printer works without any problems on that LPT card.

The OmniDrive can only work with parallel ports that are under control of the NT system driver PARPORT.SYS. Some PCI expansion cards with parallel port(s) use their own device drivers.
Use a card that works with PARPORT.SYS.

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Toshiba harddisks MK2001MPL, MK5002MPL do not work

The red LED signals card insertion as described above but it is not possible to access the card correctly.



No solution available. The above mentioned harddisks cannot work in the OmniDrive for technical reasons.
NOTE: This problem does not exist with OmniDrive USB

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HP Vectra hangs if the OmniDrive is accessed

PC's from some Vectra series (currently known: VL400/VL420) hang if the OmniDrive is accessed in EPP mode. The effect is independed from the operating system.

The EPP mode does not work correctly. Use SPP mode or a serarate LPT extension card.

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