case for zip drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mm
  • Start date Start date
M

mm

A friend has a laptop and some zip disks, and a good zipdrive in a
broken computer.

Is there an external case available that he can mount the zip drive in
and plug it all in to the laptop with USB?

I already have cases like that for 3.5 and laptop harddrives, but my
googling for this has been unsuccessful. If I know there is such a
thing, I'll keep looking.

Thanks.
 
mm said:
A friend has a laptop and some zip disks, and a good zipdrive in a
broken computer. Is there an external case available that he can
mount the zip drive in and plug it all in to the laptop with USB? I
already have cases like that for 3.5 and laptop harddrives, but my
googling for this has been unsuccessful. If I know there is such a
thing, I'll keep looking.
Click to expand...

So are asking about an *internal* zip drive in the old computer?
Wasn't that sitting in a 5.25-inch drive bay? You never mentioned what
interface is used for the data cable to the Zip drive (IDE or SATA).
Seems like you could use a 5.25-inch external case with a USB
interface. Assuming it was a 5.25-inch drive with an IDE interface, go
look at http://preview.tinyurl.com/2flqje3.
 
So are asking about an *internal* zip drive in the old computer?
Click to expand...

Yes, internal.
Wasn't that sitting in a 5.25-inch drive bay?
Click to expand...

I can't remember.
You never mentioned what
interface is used for the data cable to the Zip drive (IDE or SATA).
Click to expand...

That's because I don't know. It's not my computer and the last time I
saw it opened was several years ago, and I probably dind't notice even
then.

I sort of thought a Zip drive would be like a floppy drive
electronically. ??
Seems like you could use a 5.25-inch external case with a USB
interface. Assuming it was a 5.25-inch drive with an IDE interface, go
look at http://preview.tinyurl.com/2flqje3.
Click to expand...

Getting close.

Aha, 3 of the four have pictures of the box and the box says it's good
for CD and DVD in addition to harddrive, but no mention of Zip.
 
mm said:
A friend has a laptop and some zip disks, and a good zipdrive in a
broken computer.

Is there an external case available that he can mount the zip drive in
Click to expand...

Anything that will take a floppy drive.
and plug it all in to the laptop with USB?
Click to expand...

What bus did they plug into? you want such a case. if it exists.
 
mm said:
Yes, internal.


I can't remember.


That's because I don't know. It's not my computer and the
last time I saw it opened was several years ago, and I
probably dind't notice even then.

I sort of thought a Zip drive would be like a floppy drive
electronically. ??


Getting close.

Aha, 3 of the four have pictures of the box and the box
says it's good for CD and DVD in addition to harddrive,
but no mention of Zip.
Click to expand...

Internal Zip drives have IDE interface; their heyday was
long before SATA. Mine is 3-1/2" form factor with an adapter
that converts it to 5-1/4" (like CD). It appears on the bus
as a hard drive, not a floppy. I have never tried putting
one into a USB external CD enclosure, but I think it will
work fine. I also have IOmega's version of a USB connected
external Zip drive ... sort of what you're aiming to build.
 
A friend has a laptop and some zip disks, and a good zipdrive in a
broken computer.
Click to expand...

Tell your friend to transfer all data from the zip disks into DVD-R as
soon as possible! The disks could go bad in no time!

--
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A friend has a laptop and some zip disks, and a good zipdrive in a
broken computer.

Is there an external case available that he can mount the zip drive in
and plug it all in to the laptop with USB?

I already have cases like that for 3.5 and laptop harddrives, but my
googling for this has been unsuccessful. If I know there is such a
thing, I'll keep looking.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Why not just beg/borrow/steal a working desktop computer of similar vintage
and temporarily install the ZIP drive in that? It would then be possible to
copy the contents of the ZIP disks to some other medium which is compatible
with a modern computer. I suggest similar vintage to ensure that the
system's BIOS will recognize that obsolete medium -- I don't think that any
but my oldest system would admit that ZIP drives even exist. This seems to
be the path of least resistance.
 
Man-wai Chang to The Door (33600bps) said:
Tell your friend to transfer all data from the zip disks
into DVD-R as soon as possible! The disks could go bad in
no time!
Click to expand...
One of my clients began using Zip disks for daily data
backup in 1997: six disks used in rotation, one for each
business day in the week. I tested the disks periodically to
assure safe backups, with plans to replace older disks with
new when a failure showed up. They used the same six disks
(and the same Zip drive) for ten years without a single
failure.
 
One of my clients began using Zip disks for daily data
backup in 1997: six disks used in rotation, one for each
business day in the week. I tested the disks periodically to
assure safe backups, with plans to replace older disks with
new when a failure showed up. They used the same six disks
(and the same Zip drive) for ten years without a single
failure.
Click to expand...

You need the right "climate" to maintain those floppy diskettes! I guess
your clients had an air-conditioned room storing the diskettes.

--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.34
^ ^ 12:36:01 up 19 days 15:47 2 users load average: 1.10 1.09 1.07
ä¸å€Ÿè²¸! ä¸è©é¨™! ä¸æ´äº¤! ä¸æ‰“交! ä¸æ‰“劫! ä¸è‡ªæ®º! è«‹è€ƒæ…®ç¶œæ´ (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa
 
Bryce said:
One of my clients began using Zip disks for daily data backup in
1997: six disks used in rotation, one for each business day in the
week. I tested the disks periodically to assure safe backups, with
plans to replace older disks with new when a failure showed up. They
used the same six disks (and the same Zip drive) for ten years
without a single failure.
Click to expand...

Maybe he was referring to the common "click of death" that is well
known for Zip diskettes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death

If this user doesn't have alternate backup media (i.e., backup media of
the Zip backup media), one day it'll go clickey-clickey-dead.

I don't remember if the result was you had to replace the Zip drive and
you could continue using the old Zip disks or if the Zip diskettes were
also out of alignment so they wouldn't read in a new Zip drive. Is the
sectoring on a Zip diskette done magnetically? If so, a misaligned
head in a defective Zip drive could result in misaligned data on the
Zip diskette which means that old Zip diskette might not be readable in
a new Zip drive.

Well, since the users is only using the Zip diskettes for their daily
backups during the week, I suppose all they would lose is a week's
worth of data. However, in business, losing that much data could be
catastrophic. Large or professional companies don't use Zip diskettes
for reliable backup storage so this client is some 1-person SOHO setup.
I also bet they have yet to verify those backups (on whatever media
they use) by actually restoring the backups to a partition on a test
host (or another unused or test partition on their production host).
Doing backups sounds great until the day you actually to do a restore
and find out you cannot read from the backup media. The "verify"
option in backup programs does NOT write any data from the backup media
to a hard disk so you won't know using that option if your backup media
is really usable.
 
Bryce said:
Internal Zip drives have IDE interface; their heyday was
long before SATA. Mine is 3-1/2" form factor with an adapter
that converts it to 5-1/4" (like CD). It appears on the bus
as a hard drive, not a floppy. I have never tried putting
one into a USB external CD enclosure, but I think it will
work fine. I also have IOmega's version of a USB connected
external Zip drive ... sort of what you're aiming to build.
Click to expand...

I also have an Iomega version. It connects via the old style serial port,
not one of these new fangled Universal Serial Bus thingumybobs.
 
VanguardLH said:
Maybe he was referring to the common "click of death" that
is well known for Zip diskettes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death

If this user doesn't have alternate backup media (i.e.,
backup media of the Zip backup media), one day it'll go
clickey-clickey-dead.

I don't remember if the result was you had to replace the
Zip drive and you could continue using the old Zip disks
or if the Zip diskettes were
also out of alignment so they wouldn't read in a new Zip
drive. Is the
sectoring on a Zip diskette done magnetically? If so, a
misaligned head in a defective Zip drive could result in
misaligned data on the Zip diskette which means that old
Zip diskette might not be readable in a new Zip drive.

Well, since the users is only using the Zip diskettes for
their daily backups during the week, I suppose all they
would lose is a week's
worth of data. However, in business, losing that much
data could be
catastrophic. Large or professional companies don't use
Zip diskettes for reliable backup storage so this client
is some 1-person SOHO setup.
I also bet they have yet to verify those backups (on
whatever media
they use) by actually restoring the backups to a partition
on a test host (or another unused or test partition on
their production host). Doing backups sounds great until
the day you actually to do a restore
and find out you cannot read from the backup media. The
"verify" option in backup programs does NOT write any data
from the backup media to a hard disk so you won't know
using that option if your backup media is really usable.
Click to expand...

The client was a veterinary clinic and backups were
essential to protect ongoing business. A failed disk would
mean just one day's data lost since a different disk was
used each business day in rotation. We never had a Zip
failure, but two hard drives failed over the years and
misbehavior of the very pricy accounting software gave
numerous opportunities to restore from backup. It always
worked. We used Fastback Plus with a wrapper program that
forced the user to insert the correct disk for that day,
etc. Hand-holding for the computer challenged.
 
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