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What to do about this Zip Drive in my G4?

There are "real" 3.5-inch bay USB hubs that exist, such as https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/USB-3.0/Hubs/USB-3-Front-Panel-4-Port-Hub-35-5-25-inch-Drive-Bay~35BAYUSB3S4 This is the first one that came up, but if you dug deeper (and probably on eBay) you could likely find a USB 2.0 one.
I do not understand how this thing is suppose to work.  I have a Sonnet PCI card with a internal USB 2.0 port on it.  But how can one USB 2.0 port give you four USB 3.0 ports and the speed and current that they need? And what is that other connector I see on the back of the card?  The connector to the right of the USB plug?  Is that a SATA connector? 

I am looking for options for the open bay under the optical drive in my Blue & White.  A card reader, USB ports, a floppy drive, etc.  I want something that would fit and look nice....

mraroid

 
You will only receive USB 2.0 speeds out of anything you connect to a USB 2.0 card, and you will only receive USB 1.1 speeds out of it if your'e booted to Classic Mac OS.

This thing probably gets power from SATA or Molex - if it's SATA, there are cheap Molex to SATA power adapters available, though they vary greatly in quality.

Interestingly, 900mA of power is almost nothing by USB 3.0 standards, but it'll be "fine" for most of what gets used with old Macs.

Unfortunately, the only thing that really "looks nice" by Apple and Mac standards is either the blank bezel or the Zip bezel. I run my B&W with a Zip drive installed morely because I never got around to finding a different bezel, and at this point, likely never will. Before I got my Zip drive, I briefly ran a third hard disk in that slot, but the machine whose disk that was needed it back. It looks "fine" if you put a hard disk behind the B&W Zip bezel, probably a little better than running the machine without the bezel entirely or sawing the opening wider to accommodate something else. Unfortunately, I don't know if any "run a generic drive in the slot" bezels were ever built. That was a thing a few Mac models had back in the time when there was more than just one or two types of devices you could put in bays.

 
What C said about USB support levels. Interesting product there:

35BAYUSB3S4_bom.jpg.a8e74f4722892d50423feda5a37b1017.jpg


That's a loopback cable to hook the hub up to a backplane connector or the accessory "PEXUSB3S11 PCI Express card to provide an internal USB 3.0 port." The cube port on the back is for the oddball blue tipped USB3 connector on the loopback cable and next to it is the SATA power connector making it a powered hub.

If you have the stock (non-zip) cover plate for your B&W G3Zip bay you could have it laser cut to match the LED and Port openings from an AI file made by scanning the black front bezel of the hub for use as a template. Hardest part would be registering the openings to the B&W blank, but probably no biggie. If Ponoco or some other online outfit won't do it for you, a well equipped sign shop will probably take it on.

@Cory5412 I'm surprised you haven't installed an LS-120 behind your Zip bezel, doesn't it line up well enough?

edit: backside pic:

35BAYUSB3S4.B.jpg.d4c2c762b08cb3c3aaf03e5e4fe3ed8c.jpg


Pretty slick, would that USB 3 hub act as a USB 1.1  Hub when hooked up to a USB 1.1 port?

 
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My Power Macintosh G4 Sawtooth came with an internal Zip drive, but it doesn’t work.  I installed IomegaWare under OS 9 and I could see the drive light up and make noise, but IomegaWare told me there was no disk.  The disks I was using were NOS Fujifilm PC formatted Zip 100 disks.  The front flap of the drive fell inside it at some point, but I was able to get that piece out.  When I realized the drive wasn’t working, I disconnected the power and data cables from it.  I intended to remove it, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it out, so I let it stay in there.

 I’m now wondering if I should attempt to fix this drive or if I should remove it?  What do you guys think?  I don’t own any other Zip disks or drives.
Got your post mixed up with the running B&W G3 discussions. Same advice in your case, snag a blank plate for modification and have a go at installing any 3.5" device you desire with matched openings. If you don't care about having anything in there just pull the DOA drive out and leave the blank plate blank.

For anyone with a borked Zip in any IDE Mac, just replace it with any internal Zip 250 you find from anywhere. I've done the same with all my PowerBook Zip Modules. I swapped in the drives from Dell Zip 250 Modules I found cheap on eBay.

 
The cube port on the back is for the oddball blue tipped USB3 connector on the loopback cable and next to it is the SATA power connector making it a powered hub.
That's a full-sized USB 3.0 Type A connector.

Seeing this full sized image, you are probably meant to connect this thing to a back port on your machine, rather than to a motherboard connector, or perhaps: you can do either way. Most modern PCs have fairly large holes in them with rubber grommets through which you can route a variety of cabling.

I'm surprised you haven't installed an LS-120 behind your Zip bezel, doesn't it line up well enough?
I never had an internal one, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know if trying to "make it fit" would have occurred to me. If I remember correctly, the Zip bezel is separable from the CD bezel in that era, so if I did have a working internal LS-120 drive for that machine, I would probably have just left off the bezel entirely.

Largely, this falls under the category of my advice where, whenever possible, I tend to recommend that most people avoid starting collections of vintage media for no good reason. This applies here, too, to be honest, you "could" put an LS-120 drive in a G3, I wouldn't do it unless you were using floppies extensively for some reason, or you already had an LS-120 ecosystem built up. Notably, I, personally, am engaged in building out a collection of different removable media, because the topic and the technologies interest me extensively, and I still haven't gotten any of my LS-120 drives working because I haven't bothered to buy the special cleaning disk, which you need to use the drive at all, because normal cleaning floppies will not work in those drives.

Plus, even if I had LS-120 working at the moment, on the Mac, the "authentic" LS-120 experience is buying one for an iMac because it's 1998 and LS-120 and a plain USB floppy are like a $10 difference. That particular blip, coupled with LS-120 actually shipping earlier than USB-based Zip drives, is Imation's main claim to fame. I think there were some PowerBook bay modules as well, but by volume, that's an extreme minority of the LS-120 drives that existed, I imagine.

USB floppy drives are that much better because, as I mentioned, they're easy to clean and they're generally still compatible with diskcopy6, and are still suitable for writing diskettes for a CC, but, if you have a network, I wouldn't even bother with that.

If someone wants to fill the void in a machine, the best way to do it is to place a Zip drive there and leave it unconnected, or if you have use for it/them, put a hard disk in that spot.

If someone just wants to know what'll go there, ultimately the answer is "not much that will do you any good."

Notably, the internal USB hub that's linked is like $60 and for that money you can either buy three or four of the USB 2.0 4-port hubs (powered) from Best Buy or you can buy a better external hub with a lot more ports. You could probably buy a better hub and a Zip100 drive to fill the void for $60, so which direction any particular person goes will depend a lot on their preferences.

 
I never had an internal one, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know if trying to "make it fit" would have occurred to me. If I remember correctly, the Zip bezel is separable from the CD bezel in that era, so if I did have a working internal LS-120 drive for that machine, I would probably have just left off the bezel entirely.
You've started to get me curious about LS-120 over the last couple of weeks, What got me all-in was G's or trag's mention of drag-n-drop ejection compatibility. I just tore apart the $4.99 Thrifted bare IMATION SuperDisk that's been collecting dust in the Blueberry Fields compilation on the corner of my headboard. Just as I thought, the Floppy will work just fine in the Zip opening. Jiggering the position of an aux. momentary contact switch to Zip position should be easily done. Even the flip up dustcover looks like an acceptable fit so it may not be necessary to remove it for a B&W mod.

For the other side of the experiment, widening the FDD opening a bit on the SuperDISK's front bezel almost looks like it was planned. Height of the opening is fine for ZIP as is, but the mold's two level config would make opening that up a bit easily done if more clearance is necessary. I'll be using a smallish external USB Zip 250 mechanism in there as planned for the iLamp transplant to the 17" StudioDisplay husk. It'll be used as an animated backdrop for that Supersized Blueberry iQuarium. That's the only use I have for the only X only, non 12" AluBook member of my collection. [}:)]

If someone just wants to know what'll go there, ultimately the answer is "not much that will do you any good."
Dunno, I've got a couple of interesting front panel breakout units that could be quite useful. Things like USB/FW/Card Reader and A/V plugs are on them and a stereo headphone jack would just be to die for on the face of Jony's oversimplified minimalist VS. functionalist G4 front bezels.

 
 Notably, I, personally, am engaged in building out a collection of different removable media, because the topic and the technologies interest me extensively, and I still haven't gotten any of my LS-120 drives working because I haven't bothered to buy the special cleaning disk, which you need to use the drive at all, because normal cleaning floppies will not work in those drives.


Cory, could you post a link to this cleaning disk?  I am not finding it, but I am not sure what I am looking for.

USB floppy drives are that much better because, as I mentioned, they're easy to clean and they're generally still compatible with diskcopy6, and are still suitable for writing diskettes for a CC, but, if you have a network, I wouldn't even bother with that.
I have a collection of floppy disks for the Color Classic Mystic.  So installing a floppy drive in the B&W works for me.  If I can not get the one I bought to fit correctly or not look bad in the slot, I can always plug in a USB floppy drive....

 
Yeah, but how many of those things will work in a Mac?

For my part, the way most of my towers have been set up since I started having towers, it's usually more convenient for me to have any user-accessible i/o or ports connected to hubs or to my monitor, which is one of the reasons I tend to favor Dell UltraSharp displays over Apple's own: they lack the (largely, to me, useless) firewire connectors and add more accessible USB connectors. In addition, along these lines, my card readers are usually USB based units that are either desktop or I've connected to USB exteension cables so I can grab them wherever it's handy.

But, that's just based on the way I configure my desks. Back in 2003-2006 when I was using my blue-and-white, it was usually on the floor, often behind my actual desk, so I would have to stand up and walk around and lean over to connect anything to it.

I don't happen to have a link to the superdisk cleaning link handy.

As far as disks for your CC: image them there and use the network to move them to your G3 for further duplication/backup. diskcopy6 and its images will work well on both of those systems.

 
bad ideas: ATA/ATAPI/IDE Iomega REV mechanism in the 3.5" slot of a blue-and-white.

 
Yeah, but how many of those things will work in a Mac?
Probably all of it. Everything but the Card Reader (USB2.0) is a straight copper trace connection from loopback cable connector to front panel connector, even eSATA. It's 5.25" with two PCBs that can be cup apart by function of mixing an matching I/O choices for 3.5' form factor to some extent. I've yet to run into a beneric USB card reader I couldn't use on the QS  .  .  .  until they broke.

 
I did an SSD upgrade to my Sawtooth recently, which freed up my two mechanical HDDs.  I decided to experiment and remove the zip drive and put one of the HDDs in its place.  After adjusting the jumper settings, each drive will work in that slot.  Neither drive sticks out, which is good, thanks to the zip drive slot being 4''.  I don't really need to use either of these drives though since the SSD has enough space and I have an external SSD I can use too.  I left one of the drives in the slot, but I have it unplugged from power and data, just to have something in there.  I have considered having nothing in that slot, but I worry about dust getting inside if I do that.  I found out that some Sawtooth models had no zip drive, so if I could ever find the front bezel from one of those models, I might just use that bezel to cover up the hole.

 
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