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SCSI zip drive
- Thread starter PB145B
- Start date
markyb86
Well-known member
Keep in mind, if you plan on booting from the zip, don't put your boot zip disk in a macintosh running 8.0 or up as it will throw a newer driver for the zip onto the disk and then you won't be able to boot it on the system 7 or lower machines.
Not sure if PC's have that problem, but a G3 sure did.
EDIT: This is if you used the iomega driver.
Not sure if PC's have that problem, but a G3 sure did.
EDIT: This is if you used the iomega driver.
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Juror22
Well-known member
markyb86
Well-known member
Here's a little bit more about the subject of booting (from http://mammola.tripod.com/tips.html#Zip drive)
Fair warning: Zips "Are the least reliable storage technology to come out of the '90s" might be a more accurate way to put this.
I've got intent to build out some more storage option KB pages that shows some of the ephemera/miscellany mentioned here, but for a few different types of storage devices. One of my vintage Mac projects of late has been working with some Iomega Bernoulli 230 megabyte stuff, and that requires a specific driver.
The reliability and design problems the Zip has will eventually be documented on those pages. Being well-informed is important. For the moment, probably this is the best post for information about zip disk unreliability (among other things), there's other tidbits in the thread it's in.
PB145B
Well-known member
I’ve definitely had my fair share of trouble with Zip drives. About three months ago, I had two drives fail just days apart from one another.Fair warning: Zips "Are the least reliable storage technology to come out of the '90s" might be a more accurate way to put this.
But that being said, I do still really like Zip drives and for old machines I think they are fine.
Haven’t had any issues with my SCSI Zip drive so far.
As a former Zip drive fan, that was the camp I used to be in. I think people tend to be fans of Zip drives until they have a good reason not to.
I used to use my Zip drive heavily in the 90s. I heard of problems but never experienced them. But once you experience them, you experience them. One thing that was discovered later on is that a bad Zip disk in some cases can ruin a good drive. Fun.
All of my external Zip drives are dead. I remember buying a Zip drive on eBay once. I was in the process of copying all my Zip disks to a hard drive to be burned to CD. The drive read two disks before it died. I think the next one I bought only read one.
I have had the best luck with internal Zip drives that came pre-installed in Power Macs. Those are the only functional Zip drives I still have.
I have two disks (so far) that I cannot read at all. I hope to save up enough extra money someday to send them to one of those expensive data recovery services in the hopes they have some way of salvaging the data. Doubtful but I keep my fingers crossed.
The only reason I would buy a Zip drive anymore is to get data off a Zip disk.
If you want to experience 90's tech, they're fine. It was this thing that was like a thick floppy disk that had enough space to hold the equivalent of like 75 floppies or something. That was pretty cool. And they were smaller than and held more data than the 40MB and 80MB SyQuest cartridges we had used before. It was rare that a customer ever gave us a SyQuest cartridge. Zip drives were popular and we used to receive Zip disks from clients quite frequently, often with a sticker that read "Please return to . . ." So they're good for that authentic 90's experience. But make sure any data you put on them is backed up on something else that's not a Zip.
You'll love Zip drives until you learn not to.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Fair enough, Cory, I can agree with you there.Fair warning: Zips "Are the least reliable storage technology to come out of the '90s" might be a more accurate way to put this.
@dcr, that 's an interesting point about internal vs. external drive reliability. Not sure I've ever heard of an internal drive causing the click of death. I wonder if they can be ruined by a bad disk? The two disks you can't read wouldn't be the ones you tried first in the two drives that failed would they?
I forget where I read it, but that "cheapening" of the drives is documented as factual. The engineers who created the patented head seek mechanism that made the drives so inexpensive put a couple of doohickies in there that seemed superfluous to some marketing or production efficiency genius that came along later. When called in, the engineers were horrified and the necessary parts went back into the drives produced thereafter.
We should track that info down and document it. The externals aren't all that hard to open for inspection. If the parts or the lack thereof can be easily determined we should do that as a matter of course. I wonder how many of the drives made in that timeframe are still working? It may be as simple as checking the tooling date codes that should be present on the inside of the cases to determine the need for further inspection?
The two unreadable disks were, as far as I recall, never tried in the now-broken external drives. Also, if I recall, the disks that were the last ones used/tested in the external drives before they broke were able to be used and read in the internal drives. There is at least one Zip disk the internal drive has been unable to read all the data off of. I still have about 60 Zip disks I need to move files off of. I am hoping the drives live long enough to finish the job.
For whatever it may be worth, the two working internal Zip drives I have both came pre-installed in Power Macintosh 8600 models. One is an 8600/200 and I think the other is an 8600/250.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Does Zip run off SCSI or IDE/ATAPI in the 8600? If the latter, you can swap in readily available 250MB drives. If the former and you have TWO internal SCSI drives I'm jealous. One of my pair had its power connector keying tab broken off when I got it and you can guess why it's now dead. [:I] Try a USB external 250 drive on a USB Mac. The 250 drive reads/writes both, disks, I'm hoping that mechanism will be versatile enough to read your disks.. If you've not already done so, it's worth a try. Those drives are cheap as . . .
The internal hard drive is SCSI based, so I would guess the Zip is as well. I think the only way to use IDE devices inside was to get a PCI expansion card.
How are you defining "cheap as . . ."? The only cheap ones I see on that certain auction site are the ones for "parts or repair."
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Maybe, things change, haven't been in the market for IDE Zip drives in some time.
I believe the unreliable one were version 1 zip100 like 2 of mine but mostly fixed with zip plus onwards. Knock them but to be fair there’s a lot still working 25 years later thats better than most of apple equipment, my se/30 needed recap the cd300 also so they aren’t all bad
I don't know if any of mine were the Zip Plus, but I am pretty sure the USB version came after the Zip Plus and I have two or three dead USB Zip drives.I believe the unreliable one were version 1 zip100 like 2 of mine but mostly fixed with zip plus onwards. Knock them but to be fair there’s a lot still working 25 years later thats better than most of apple equipment, my se/30 needed recap the cd300 also so they aren’t all bad
As a side note, why are there no Apple II emoji? :sadmac:
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