+DarkLord Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 I know this is a long shot but I thought I'd give it a try. I've recently been trying to find some older files so I was going through the backups at DarkForce. Most of my backups, dating to about 2005 are on CD-ROM. No problem there. However, before then, before I got a 2x SCSI Plextor CD burner, I used a Syquest EZ-135. Now, the sad part is, I had a plastic case that held approximately 10-15 EZ carts. I can NOT find it anywhere. I do still have the drive, it's still hooked up to the Mega ST4 that runs my BBS, although I rarely turn it on (there's just no need to). I was curious to see what was on the EZ cart that is in the drive though so I fired it up. Power light came on, read light came on, ejects the cart no problem. HDDriver recognized the drive fine, ID'ing it and all that stuff. Drive icon "L" is on the desktop. However, it won't read the cart. When you insert it and lock it in place using the lever, it reads for about 30 seconds or so, then the lever un-clicks and it stops. I examined the cart, looks fine, even pristine. I shook it a bit, slapped it against my hand but nothing like that made any difference. So...anyone have any ideas about how I might recover the data on that one single EZ-cart I have remaining? It's dated for 1995 so I'd really like to see what's on it. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrylaffer Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 If your drive reads the other cartridges then obviously this one is bad and unfortunately I have no solution. If you only have this cartridge maybe try with another local atari fan and see if they can read? (In case your drive works but cannot read anymore). If you have no local atari friend PM me, I have a syquest 44 drive and I could try it for you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djglish Posted December 25, 2020 Share Posted December 25, 2020 If you can't find anyone local I have a Syquest EZ-135 drive that I could try it on. I'd have to check the drive first to make sure that it is still working. I'm in Wisconsin so not near by. Also have a Syquest 105, 270 and a 1.0gb Sparq drives. They were really great back in the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted December 25, 2020 Author Share Posted December 25, 2020 Okay, thanks guys. Will probably grab a new cart just to see if the drive is still reading/working. If not...well, will go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 5, 2021 Author Share Posted April 5, 2021 Just wanted to follow up on this. Again, thanks to everyone who volunteered to help, appreciated. I finally got a brand new EZ-135 cart in from Amazon (last one they had in stock at time of ordering) and it came in today. I'm running HDDriver with TOS v1.04 so I just formatted it to TOS, one big partition and it worked fine. Copied and deleted files from it with no problems at all. So the drive is fine, just that one cart is borked, apparently. I did try re-reading it several times but no go so I think it's a goner. Thanks again everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted April 6, 2021 Share Posted April 6, 2021 Do a device check in HDDriver while it is in the 30 seconds of reading. Sometimes it can jar it into be readable. Be sure to have space to dump the stuff off if it does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 6, 2021 Author Share Posted April 6, 2021 The EZ drive won't even mount the cart. When inserted, it attempts to read then the lever goes into the eject position. So I'm assuming you mean have HDDriver up and ready for that brief time it's attempting to read the drive before it does eject it. I'll give it a shot, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted April 6, 2021 Share Posted April 6, 2021 Yes that is what I mean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 7, 2021 Author Share Posted April 7, 2021 (edited) Well, I tried it about half a dozen times, same results. The drive attempts to read the cart for about 15 seconds or so, then stops and pops the eject lever. It was worth a shot though. I'm not unhappy, the drive does indeed work and I have a working cart now, so it's all good. Thanks, much appreciated. Edited April 7, 2021 by DarkLord Additional info... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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