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Questions tagged [zip-drive]

a removable disk drive for reading/writing 'Superfloppy' Zip Disks, which have capacities of 100 MB, 250 MB and 750 MB. Use this tag for questions relating to zip drives & disks.

Overview

The Zip drive is a removable floppy disk storage system. Introduced by Iomega in late 1994, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, with later versions being 250 MB and 750 MB.

Zip Disks were classified as a 'superfloppy' along with other similar products which filled a niche in the late 1990s portable storage market. Of all the Superfloppies, Zip was the most popular, However the technology never built up enough popularity to replace the 3.5-inch floppy disk and later, CDs and DVDs. Nor could Zip Disks match the storage size of the latter.

Zip drives fell out of favor for mass portable storage during the early 2000s.

Tag Use

This tag should be used for questions regarding Zip drives and disks, especially reading/writing, troubleshooting and backup/recovery solutions.

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What do I need to get an old 100MB Zip drive working?

I have a need to retrieve some data from a zip drive, but I cannot remember what I need to get everything working. What I have: Old PC with IDE controller running fresh install of WinXP SP3 ZIP drive with IDE interface The CD-ROM in the PC was…
chris
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Can a Parallel Only 100MB Zip Drive be mounted on a Mac running 10.11 via Parallel to USB Adapter?

I have several old 100MB Zip Disks I used to use with a PC that I would like to import and archive the contents of. I purchased a generic DB25 Parallel Connector to USB adapter, and it is detected by my Mac, and VMWare will alert me to decide where…
Electrik Dave
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Reading Iomega Zip 100 disk on MacBook Pro?

I’m trying to read a Iomega Zip 100 disk through old external Iomega Zip 100 drive, which I've connected to my MacBook Pro through the original USB 1.0 cable. It sounds like the drive is reading the disk (there’s no reason except age that either the…
Amyunimus
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Can I attach a Zip Drive to a Hard Disk Enclosure?

I have a 3.5 inch IDE/SATA (it has cables for both) enclosure, an old internal IDE Zip drive and 20 Zip disks. I just want to pull whatever's on them off and store the files somewhere else. I'm not looking for any kind of finished, permanent…
Dzejms
  • 123
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Accessing an ATAPI Zip Drive via a USB-ATA bridge

I have an old Iomega Zip100 drive (labelled as ATAPI) which I'm trying to access via a USB-ATA/SATA bridge. Under Windows 7, plugging it in brings up an error in Device Manager (USB Mass Storage Device: This device cannot start); under Linux (Ubuntu…
Andrew
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How do I mount a (possibly encrypted) Mac-formatted Iomega zip disk under Debian Linux?

I have a machine with an internal Iomega Zip-250 drive, running Debian stable (Lenny). I have been using it to back up a pile of Zip-100 disks from back when they were popular. Once I learned to mount them using /dev/hdd4, things mostly run…
eswald
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Bulk erase Zip disks

I have a few dozen old iomega ZIP disks (100MB and 250MB) that I found cleaning house and I'd like to bulk erase them without mounting them on a computer. Any suggestions?
Peter Murray
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Zip 250 drive on J-Micron eSATA/PATA controller not detected

On a Windows XP desktop, I have connected a Zip 250 drive (Z250ATAPI) to the motherboard's integrated J-Micron eSATA/PATA controller. The IDE cable has 2 connectors but only one is used. It seems the device isn't recognized by the BIOS, as I cannot…
AlexAngc
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