Whither ZIP Drives?

12/3/03

[Alberta's Child]

Your problem may not only be the multi-tasking, but an unstable operating system. Let me guess -- you're using Windows 98, right?

[Luke Skyfreeper]

I agree with The Dude. You don't necessarily need a new system.

Upgrade your OS to Windows XP. Home edition will probably do; there are online comparisons to see whether you need pro, most people don't.

You can get Win XP for $100 at Wal-Mart.

I'm running Win 2K Professional on a 266-MHz machine and have 10 windows open right now. I don't usually have more than 20 windows open, usually mostly browser windows, but I also run other programs as well.

Consider adding memory. I only have 128 MB on my system; could probably use a bit more.

And install a CD-RW or DVD drive. Move to that instead of zip disks. A CD-RW will hold 650 to 700 MB of data, DVDs much more I believe.

Unless, of course, you have plenty of money to throw. In which case, buy a new computer (again, Wal-Mart's a good place to shop) and give me your old one. I'll pay for shipping. 8-)

Will be waiting for your freepmail. 8-)

[SamAdams76]

Don't even waste your money on a new Zip drive. I find Zip drives to cumbersome and unweildy to use. The media is overly expensive as you probably well know. There are better solutions out there.

Here's what to do. Transfer all the Zip drives to the hard drive of your old computer. When you get your new system, get a USB "flash" drive, which you can get at any computer store. These devices connect to any PC (or Mac) through a USB port and have capacities ranging from 40MB to a full gig, depending on how much you want to spend. These devices are automatically recognized by Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Mac OS's and install their own drivers automatically as soon as you plug them in. They appear on your system as another hard drive and you can send files back and forth between the device and any other drive on your system. They are tiny too and can fit on your keychain. I highly recommend them.

You can use this device to ferry the files from your old PC to your new one and then burn the files to CD for backup. All new PCs come with rewritable CD drives and the software to use them. A stack of blank CDs will cost you what a single ZIP floppy would have costed.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

I also agree with Spiff. With that much data, I'd think I'd go by preference with a writable DVD drive.

[Publius6961]

Use the old zip drive on your new computer.
Then transfer to the new huge hard drive.

Then onto CDs.
Use the old zip drive as a frisbee.
Start using CDRs instead. A fraction of the cost of a zip disk (a low as 10c each).

Use Solid state USB "drives" for temporary stuff.

[djf]

Yup. I bought an external USB hard drive kit, then went and got a cheap laptop size 10 gigger. I never burn CD's anymore, (except for muzak), if I have something I want to back up, I copy it off the laptop to the external HD, then copy it to one of my desktops.

[Political Junkie Too]

Why is your computer crashing? Are you still running Windows 98 (the operating system at the time)? I had a similar crashing problem with my Gateway P3 500 mhz computer. I recently installed Windows XP and it has been solid ever since. Perhaps the new operating system is better at managing the drivers than Windows 98 was.

-PJ

[Prime Choice]

ZIP drives are rapidly being obsoleted by solid state USB drives which are much smaller, lighter, and easier to use. The falling cost of CD/RW and DVD/RW drives is also having an impact since one CD-ROM can hold more data than 7 ZIP disks and one DVD-ROM can hold more than 400 ZIP disks.

But, to answer your question, you can pick up an external ZIP drive (USB) on buy.com for a really good price. You can also check on ebay.com since a lot of people seem to be selling theirs.

As for CD-ROM burners, I'm really happy with Sony's brand, but I haven't heard a bad word about any other major manufacturer's CD/RW, so let your experience be your guide in terms of product quality.

Happy shopping!

[BurbankKarl]

Over the years I became the PC administrator for our office, which has 10 PCs.

I would look at a new Dell PC if you can swing it...having 6 screens open at once on Win98 is asking for it...plus that operating system is not supported anymore. If you start adding new drives the drivers might not work, etc.

You can order a new PC with a Zip drive installed. The Zip 250 will read and write to Zip 100 disks and Zip 750 will read your old Zip 100 disks, but will not write to them. I would suggest saving your stuff to CD-R discs in the future.

If you keep your monitor, you can get a good, fast system for cheap, and will be worth it saving your time dissecting your current system.

[Ignatz]

When the last zip drive finally finds it's way into the trash bin, we'll all be way ahead.

You got that right, TT.
About two months after I had first heard of ZIP drives I had the opportunity to install two of them.
Both were bad right out of the box!

Ever hear the phrase, "click death"? That's the term for what befalls a zip drive; it just continually clicks, trying to recognize the disk.

I soon found myself replacing these drives frequently, as I worked as a break-fix technician for a university. I even took a few of then apart to see if I could determine the cause of "click death". Much to my surprise, the transport (the mechanism that handles the disk within the drive) was made completely of plastic! Contrast that to a floppy drive; floppy drive transports are made out of metal.

I did find out that "click death" is caused by the read/write heads suffering some kind of damage from, say, inserting a ZIP disk into the drive. The heads then continually move back and forth across the disk surface trying to find the first cluster or file block, but they are damaged and cannot read from the disk. This may also, then, damage the disk surface so that any data on the disk is lost.
Based upon personal experience, I would recommend another storage medium.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Hey, Gateway has a nice refurbed desktop model with a 15" flat panel for under $650. 80GB drive. Get an external zip on a USB. But use the CDRW just like you do the zip and write/erase/rewrite to CD's. Get Nero Burn for a CD copying program, it's the best IMO.

Gateway will have some nice refurbed laptops soon (after people who get them for xmas return them, and after their country stores return any unsold stock; the new ones get sold as refurbs, too). So it might be worth the wait..

No matter what, try to get a pc with 2000 Pro or XP Pro for the OS.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

After re-reading your post; if you don't buy a new system, get a zip on USB. Easy to install. But you might consider going to Windows2k Pro for stability. Find and run Spinrite on your drive to fix it, and clean it up if you are going to stay with Win98 (I assume you run Win98SE) or get a program like gateway's gwscan to write zeroes to it (after you back it all up) and install win2k.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Doesnt Steve Gibson have a fix for click death?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I have a mint condition 100mb external Zip drive that connects via the parallel port. It comes with 5 blank 100mb disks, power supply and all the software on multiple CDs.

It's for sale for short money if you're interested.

[Ignatz]

Ummm..Steve Gibson? Who's he?
The only fix I know of for "click death" is a replacement drive.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Many of the newer OEM motherboards, like Dell and Gateway, will not support an IDE Zip drive.

If there's an open PCI slot, you can install a cheap IDE controller card that will give you 4 ports for peripherals.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

http://grc.com/tip/clickdeath.htm

[martin_fierro]

Check out www.pricewatch.com:

Removable Storage

$42 - Zip 250MB USB
$9 - ZIP 250MB IDE
$9 - ZIP 100MB IDE
$13 - Parallel
$204 - Jaz 2GB
$9 - Adapter
$9 - ...All in Category

[azcap]

ANYTHING THAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU SHOULD NOT BE ON ZIP MEDIA

I did some print work for a company that had several years worth of artwork and advertising on hundreds of zip disks. Of the ones that were more than 2 or three years old we encountered numerous unreadable disks. If that stuff is important you forget about zip and get it burned in an CD or DVD format. And the "Click of Death" is very aptly named - and very common.

[boris]

Never trust Zip or Jaz drives, or any Iomega product.

Read up on "click of death"; there are a million of them online.

Get a zip external, save your data to CD and trash the drive and media.

I had a brand-new Jaz fail on me. Sent it back under warranty and they sent me a refurb. Would not accept media. Inspection revealed that one of the sintered half-moon bits which grasp the hub had fallen off. I taped it to the drive and sent it back on a new RMA. A third Jaz drive arrived (new), DEAD ON ARRIVAL. I wrote the president of the company a very angry letter and was rewarded with a fourth Jaz...which worked long enough for me to get my data off of it.

I'm selling it, plus 10 2-gig media, plus 4 1-gig media, plus cable, power supply, and SCSI card (Adaptec 2940) on Ebay. Haven't checked the bids but I started the thing at $125 bucks and I pay the shipping.

To get an idea of the size of this "bargain", 1-gb Jaz media "USED" to go for ~$100 new; I believe the 2-gb media debuted at the same price and they reduced the cost of the 1-gb media.

Nothing they make is worth spit...which I learned the hard way.

--Boris