You sure that is parallel port, not early DB25 SCSI? Yes that does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI_connector

Did you run the Micro solutions Testport utility to see if your LPT port is set to Bi-directional or EPP ?
It should use a straight-thru cable iirc.

evasive wrote on 2020-05-30, 20:55:

You sure that is parallel port, not early DB25 SCSI? Yes that does exist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI_connector

Yes, I'm aware of that, but this is too new for that interface.

Horun wrote on 2020-05-30, 20:58:

Did you run the Micro solutions Testport utility to see if your LPT port is set to Bi-directional or EPP ?
It should use a straight-thru cable iirc.

I tried that as well. It sees the port and is set to EPP (I've also tried ECP, ECP+EPP, and standard modes). I've also tried adding NOEPP in the config.sys file but that didn't work either.

Your model is a triple play, have you tried USB ? Also you might want to drop in a audio cd, it might auto play it (noticed no play button on the cd) some cdrom will but many do not. Just as a test...

Horun wrote on 2020-05-30, 22:07:

Your model is a triple play, have you tried USB ? Also you might want to drop in a audio cd, it might auto play it (noticed no play button on the cd) some cdrom will but many do not. Just as a test...

It does have USB, and I've attached it to my Win 10 machine. It does see it as an unknown device (device ID does indicate it is the Backpack CDRW), so it looks like it is working. However this option won't work because the machine it is supposed to be hooked up to - Unisys CWD-5001-ZA - does not have USB and only one expansion slot that is occupied by a sound card. So I'm guessing it does work, but I just need to find the appropriate cable.

Nice ! I have a Unisys CWD-5001 too, nice little pentium computers with a FIC motherboard.

Hello Brickpad,

As it looks like this model has the ability to pass-through to a downstream printer that makes it seem slightly less likely that the cable is anything other than straight through.

I wondered though if you would try a set of Linux boot disks. This would get the BIOS out of the way. The last Linux OS where it is reasonable to make a set of boot floppies is Slackware 11. There is even a pre made boot disk with parallel port IDE support, but unfortunately it supports only bpck and not bpck6 drivers (BTW: did you double check that the DOS driver you are using is Series 6 as this drive is as it's apparently a different protocol). However, if you have 4 floppies around, you could write a pportide boot disk, the two root disks, and the paride modules including bpck6. As long as you have 16MB of RAM on the machine it should work. I just did a dry run in a VM but don't have any hardware to test it on.

Try and get a cable that was used on an old parallel flat bed scanner. That is what I when I got my back pack cdrom player with out a cable. I've daisy chained a LS120 drive to mine. Both drives are attached to the lpt port on my Zenith Z286LP Plus. Both work seamlessly with the Dos divers loaded up. I can still hook up a printer if I need to.

Well guys, I think I found the problem. Had a bit of strange intuition to crack the case open...and this is what I found! Looks like someone had been in here before to replace the drive, but forgot one of the important steps! I re-attached the IDE cable, and set the drive to master (it was set as slave), attached the extra ZIP drive cable, and voila, it works!

Thanks for all your help!