Iomega Jaz 1GB internal drive

I have a Power PC 9500/180/96 MP that I have installed a 1GB Jaz internal drive. The drive is constantly losing the format from the disks. When this happens, the drive cannot even format the disk. Iomega has told me to promote the driver by placing three spaces in front of the drive name in the extensions. This has made no difference. Even when the drive is functioning, it takes as long as 5 minutes to mount. I also have a Zip 100Mb drive that works flawlesly. I cannot find any information or anyone else that has had the same situation. I have checked for extension conflicts and nothing changes. Has anyone seen this situation?

First, be sure to always use Iomega software to format disks. Apple's OS will try to format them and may be successful, but it is only asking for trouble, at least up to OS 8.5.
I haven't had the SAME problem(s), but have noticed my JAZ acting flaky, such as with a fluttering activity (orange) light, and slow mounting, and such until I upgraded to IomegaWare, the latest release.
It still sometimes acts weird, but not AS weird.
If you don't have that latest software, try downloading it from Iomega.com and seeing if it helps at all.

I personally have an aversion to all Iomega devices since the click-death problem they had. I had to dump 2 internals and about 14 ZIP disks into the trash before they would even acknowledge a problem existed (class-action suit helped that...), but then I missed their window of generosity when an external ZIP drive click-deathed. They are back to ignoring the issue and charging $62 to refurbish a drive I could get new for $99. Maybe you should look into a CD-R instead?
Anyway, it may very well be the drive and nothing about your Mac at all.