4.27 Mzip

The mzip command is used to issue ZIP disk specific commands on Linux, Solaris or HP-UX. Its syntax is:

mzip [-epqrwx]

Mzip allows the following command line options:

e

Ejects the disk.

f

Force eject even if the disk is mounted (must be given in addition to -e).

r

Write protect the disk.

w

Remove write protection.

p

Password write protect.

x

Password protect

u

Temporarily unprotect the disk until it is ejected. The disk becomes writable, and reverts back to its old state when ejected.

q

Queries the status

To remove the password, set it to one of the password-less modes -r or -w: mzip will then ask you for the password, and unlock the disk. If you have forgotten the password, you can get rid of it by low-level formatting the disk (using your SCSI adapter’s BIOS setup).

The ZipTools disk shipped with the drive is also password protected. On MS-DOS or on a Mac, this password is automatically removed once the ZipTools have been installed. From various articles posted to Usenet, I learned that the password for the tools disk is APlaceForYourStuff¹. Mzip knows about this password, and tries it first, before prompting you for a password. Thus mzip -w z: unlocks the tools disk². The tools disk is formatted in a special way so as to be usable both in a PC and in a Mac. On a PC, the Mac file system appears as a hidden file named partishn.mac. You may erase it to reclaim the 50 Megs of space taken up by the Mac file system.

4.27.1 Bugs

This command is a big kludge. A proper implementation would take a rework of significant parts of mtools, but unfortunately I don’t have the time for this right now. The main downside of this implementation is that it is inefficient on some architectures (several successive calls to mtools, which defeats mtools’ caching).