Do zip disks get corrupted like floppy disks?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Tsao
  • Start date Start date
C

Chris Tsao

Do you know if zip disks can be corrupted like floppy disks do? I once
erased a floppy drive by hitting the Save button. I meant to save what
I had just finished typing, instead, I inadvertantly erased a huge
chunch of my document. So I am wondering if this happens to people who
use zip disks?
 
Chris said:
Do you know if zip disks can be corrupted like floppy disks do? I once
erased a floppy drive by hitting the Save button. I meant to save what
I had just finished typing, instead, I inadvertantly erased a huge
chunch of my document. So I am wondering if this happens to people who
use zip disks?
Click to expand...

It can happen with any media, Zips are more reliable and less vunerable
than floppies, but not immune to User Error, or just plain media
failure. Also, if you Bulk Erase a zip, you CANNOT recover the media
(IOMEGA can, they have equipment). I tried.
 
It can happen with any media, Zips are more reliable and less vunerable
than floppies, but not immune to User Error, or just plain media
failure. Also, if you Bulk Erase a zip, you CANNOT recover the media
(IOMEGA can, they have equipment). I tried.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I once erased a significantly large portion of a file due to
just plain media failure.
 
Chris said:
Do you know if zip disks can be corrupted like floppy disks do?
Click to expand...

Zip disks are far worse for that than floppies. Some brands
with some drivers actually require you to have a different
name for each disk, or if you are working on one disk, and
for some reason insert another disk, the fat from the first
disk will do a delayed write over the fat on the 2nd disk,
and your files are gone. Zip technology is a dead duck,
and good riddance.

johns
 
johns said:
Zip disks are far worse for that than floppies. Some brands
with some drivers actually require you to have a different
name for each disk, or if you are working on one disk, and
for some reason insert another disk, the fat from the first
disk will do a delayed write over the fat on the 2nd disk,
and your files are gone. Zip technology is a dead duck,
and good riddance.

johns
Click to expand...

Amen. One of the worst storage systems ever.

You could also get this great error where after you hit eject, the disk
continues to spin, and spin and click. For no reason. Ugh. Failure to
mount. Failure to eject. Ugh. UGH!

Saving anything important on a zip disk is like asking for a huge headache.

~e.
 
Chris said:
Do you know if zip disks can be corrupted like floppy disks do? I once
erased a floppy drive by hitting the Save button. I meant to save what
Click to expand...

zip disks ARE floppy disks, so yeah, they are just as bad as 1.44s.
 
visions said:
Amen. One of the worst storage systems ever.

You could also get this great error where after you hit eject, the disk
continues to spin, and spin and click. For no reason. Ugh. Failure to
mount. Failure to eject. Ugh. UGH!

Saving anything important on a zip disk is like asking for a huge
headache.

~e.
Click to expand...
Not always. In 1996, I bought a parallel-port Zip drive (the only flavor
available back then) for data backup on a small business network. They
do daily backups to seven disks in rotation. Ten YEARS later, they're
still using the same seven disks with the same drive! It has worked
perfectly. I've replaced two network cards, one hard drive, two
printers and a CDROM at the same site during this time.

I bought a parallel-port drive at the same time, use it occasionally.
Also have 4 internal ATAPI Zip drives. No problems with any of them.

Roby
 
Zip-Disks like any other magnetic media ARE vulnerable to EMI Fields,
just like their floppy counterparts, the difference with Zip-Disks is
that they have more extensive CRC checking and zip recovery records so
they are recoverable most of the time from small errors...User Error
however can only be stopped by BEING CAREFUL
 
Mitochondrion said:
Zip-Disks like any other magnetic media ARE vulnerable to EMI Fields,
just like their floppy counterparts, the difference with Zip-Disks is
that they have more extensive CRC checking and zip recovery records so
they are recoverable most of the time from small errors...User Error
however can only be stopped by BEING CAREFUL
Click to expand...

I got an external A drive last week and I only use it for files that
won't be the end of the world if I lose.

I am working on something that could possibly be a tad lucrative that I
don't want stolen by hackers, so I save it in Works on my hard drive
and then to CD's and then immediately delete it so it goes to the
Recycle Bin. Then, I immediately erase it with Drive Erase Pro data
destruction software I bought a few days after I started this thread. I
erase it with 15 passes.

Is there any way that hackers could *still* recover what I erased. I
would simply buy a cheap laptop that's not hooked up to the internet
and make life easier. I don't have a job so this would be splurging for
me. Maybe if hackers can steal my project I'm working on, I should use
Christmas and birthday money to buy a cheap laptop and pay for part of
it in monthly installments?

If anyone can recover my files, I am hoping that they would have to
physically get a hold of my computer and that they can't do it online.
Like didn't the cops come to Pete Townsend's house to confiscate his
computer? If yes, this must be because they couldn't retrieve deteleted
files and stuff online?
 
"Chris said:
I got an external A drive last week and I only use it for files that
won't be the end of the world if I lose.

I am working on something that could possibly be a tad lucrative that I
don't want stolen by hackers, so I save it in Works on my hard drive
and then to CD's and then immediately delete it so it goes to the
Recycle Bin. Then, I immediately erase it with Drive Erase Pro data
destruction software I bought a few days after I started this thread. I
erase it with 15 passes.

Is there any way that hackers could *still* recover what I erased. I
would simply buy a cheap laptop that's not hooked up to the internet
and make life easier. I don't have a job so this would be splurging for
me. Maybe if hackers can steal my project I'm working on, I should use
Christmas and birthday money to buy a cheap laptop and pay for part of
it in monthly installments?

If anyone can recover my files, I am hoping that they would have to
physically get a hold of my computer and that they can't do it online.
Like didn't the cops come to Pete Townsend's house to confiscate his
computer? If yes, this must be because they couldn't retrieve deteleted
files and stuff online?
Click to expand...

In magnetic media, you would hope a track in the media is perfectly
concentric with the axis of rotation. Hard drives have embedded
servo information (user data and info identifying the track, are
interleaved in the track). When you write to the media, the servo
information is fed to the servo control system, to keep the head
centered above the track.

After a so-called "secure erasure", the information in the center of
the track has been wiped, but on the "shoulders" of the track, there
could still be some information. To extract the information would
require one of two approaches:

1) If the technology allows, push the head assembly "off-track",
and read the field on the edge of the track. A modern hard
drive would make this difficult, since when you get on the edge
of the track, you might also have a reduced amplitude signal
from the embedded servo information. The drive might not be
too happy about this. Pushing a head off-track is easier with
some older disk technologies, where one platter is reserved for
servo information. Some older drive technologies actually
had commands to push them off track.

2) Remove the physical media and scan it with one of many devices
having the resolution of an electron microscope. In theory you
could develop a detailed magnetic image of the entire platter,
and by examining the field strength, find the center of tracks
and the edges of tracks etc.

Neither of these methods is that practical.

If you wish to have some notion of security, there are hard
drives with hardware support for encryption. This one for
example:

http://www.seagate.com/newsinfo/newsroom/success/D2g42.html
http://www.seagate.com/content/docs/pdf/marketing/PO-Momentus-FDE.pdf

The data at the head level is encrypted and looks like "noise"
to the casual examiner. You need the key to get the info back.
The trick then, is to make sure the key is not stored on the
machine itself, and that you make a habit of storing the key
and the computer, in different places. You can afford to lose
the drive itself, without too much worry that the info on the
drive will be recovered.

The reason that Seagate product is desirable, is there are
no "unencrypted" copies sitting around. You might also consider
using something like PGP to encrypt the files before transporting
them, but then there might still be unencrypted versions sitting
in temp directories and the like. The advantage of drive level
encryption, is everything on the drive (temp directories and
all) is encrypted at all times, until pulled into computer
memory.

Paul
 
Paul said:
In magnetic media, you would hope a track in the media is perfectly
concentric with the axis of rotation. Hard drives have embedded
servo information (user data and info identifying the track, are
interleaved in the track). When you write to the media, the servo
information is fed to the servo control system, to keep the head
centered above the track.

After a so-called "secure erasure", the information in the center of
the track has been wiped, but on the "shoulders" of the track, there
could still be some information. To extract the information would
require one of two approaches:

1) If the technology allows, push the head assembly "off-track",
and read the field on the edge of the track. A modern hard
drive would make this difficult, since when you get on the edge
of the track, you might also have a reduced amplitude signal
from the embedded servo information. The drive might not be
too happy about this. Pushing a head off-track is easier with
some older disk technologies, where one platter is reserved for
servo information. Some older drive technologies actually
had commands to push them off track.

2) Remove the physical media and scan it with one of many devices
having the resolution of an electron microscope. In theory you
could develop a detailed magnetic image of the entire platter,
and by examining the field strength, find the center of tracks
and the edges of tracks etc.

Neither of these methods is that practical.

If you wish to have some notion of security, there are hard
drives with hardware support for encryption. This one for
example:

http://www.seagate.com/newsinfo/newsroom/success/D2g42.html
http://www.seagate.com/content/docs/pdf/marketing/PO-Momentus-FDE.pdf

The data at the head level is encrypted and looks like "noise"
to the casual examiner. You need the key to get the info back.
The trick then, is to make sure the key is not stored on the
machine itself, and that you make a habit of storing the key
and the computer, in different places. You can afford to lose
the drive itself, without too much worry that the info on the
drive will be recovered.

The reason that Seagate product is desirable, is there are
no "unencrypted" copies sitting around. You might also consider
using something like PGP to encrypt the files before transporting
them, but then there might still be unencrypted versions sitting
in temp directories and the like. The advantage of drive level
encryption, is everything on the drive (temp directories and
all) is encrypted at all times, until pulled into computer
memory.

Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks I will copy and paste these links you gave me in a file I keep
for technincal computer
issues that occurr in my life. If I download them and figure out how to
do everything that I need to, it just might be by happenstance and/or a
concuring series of coincidences a la Forest Gump, so maybe I can just
pull the yellow ethernet cable out or shut off my DSL box whenever I'm
finished with what I'm working on?, or the hackers would still be able
to access MS Works and thus read my file?
 
yeah, once you have done 15 passes over your encrypted data it is very
UNLIKELY that someone will have either the time money or patience to
attempt a recovery, also with areal density reaching higher and
higher; optical (Laser/EM) methods of recovery become very tedious
 
Mitochondrion said:
yeah, once you have done 15 passes over your encrypted data it is very
UNLIKELY that someone will have either the time money or patience to
attempt a recovery, also with areal density reaching higher and
higher; optical (Laser/EM) methods of recovery become very tedious
Click to expand...

Please correct me if I am wrong, I can save files on floppy disks with
my external floppy drive and the files won't first be saved into the
harddrive like the way CD's are.

If this is so, then I can simply just do a word count after every time
I save something to a floppy disk in order to verify that the floppy
drive didn't malfuntion and erase some of the text from the floppy
disk. I'd make lots of backup copies, so if it happens, I won't lose
too much text.

It would be a good idea if they can invent a way of saving stuff to a
CD where you don't have to first save it on a hard-drive.
 
yeah, once you have done 15 passes over your encrypted data it is very
UNLIKELY that someone will have either the time money or patience to
attempt a recovery, also with areal density reaching higher and
higher; optical (Laser/EM) methods of recovery become very tedious
Click to expand...


Oh they can attempt one, but they're not going to recover
it.
 
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