> Either I should pull the zip drive out or
> go back to Mandrake distribution
> (I am trying to switch away from Mandrake)..

As yet myself I use Knoppix only to boot from CD. I haven't yet tried to talk to a PATAPI device other than my DVD/ CD.

> Either I should pull the zip drive out

Me, I like the USB Flash drives sold by Iomega & its competitors.

> The problem does not seem to budge.

I'm too new & ignorant to move directly to the right answer. The people who really know what's going on hang out near:

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-scsi

> -> Makes the entry for IOMEGA ZIP disparrear from plscsi -w output

`plscsi -w` is a short way of saying: plscsi /dev/sg[0-9]*

Naturally I ask, does knoppix26 hdd=ide-cd make the ZIP entry suddenly appear in the
plscsi /dev/hd[abcd]

> lsmod | grep -i ide produces
> ide_floppy 19840 0
> ide_cd 39680 0
> ide_scsi 17688 0

Trying to make ide-cd and ide-scsi coexist may be difficult. You might want to fight towards having just one or the other. You might try: knoppix26 hdc=ide-cd hdd=ide-cd