Iomega Zip-100 Disk Problem

I have numerous 100MB Iomega Zip-100 Disks containing:
1) Backups of files on my Hard Drive.
2) Files that are not on my Hard Drive used as the only source.

Recently I had a disk go unreadable, although the Zip-Drive would still read other disks. So I'm guessing the drive is ok.
Luckily, it was a disk with backups of files from my HDD (category 1).

My concern is the category 2 disks which are my only source.

I have had drives go bad before, but never a disk.

Is there a work-around or possibly software that might render a defective Zip-100 disk readable?

Ref: WinXP MCE SP1, 256MB RAM, Iomega USB-2 100MB Zip Drive

 

Thanks Steve,

I have a CD-RW but it's a pain when the files are revised regularly.

With a Zip-Disk I can just drag and replace any particular file as many times as necessary.

I'll have a look at the SnapFiles Restoration utility, but it looks like it's for undeleting files whereas my drive won't recognize there is a disk in it at all.

Hence, the utility probably won't recognize the disk either?

 

Check out Steve Gibson's page on "The Click of Death" http://www.grc.com/tip/clickdeath.htm it will describe problems that are prevelant with zip drives. Also includes a utility to test the drive.

Eprom

 

Zip disks do give out after a period of time (the Iomega software contains a utility that estimates the remaining life of each disk) and they do so with absolutely no warning. Recovery utilities can't work because, as you say, the disks can't be accessed. In addition, the disks are marked somehow by the Iomega software so that they can't be accessed in any other Zip drive, either.

You could look at some packet wririting software that allowed you to drag and drop to re-writable CD's. Or even look at an external hard drive that will last much longer than Zips and give you nearly instant access.

I finally boxed up my Zip drive. It still may be useful for installing an OS to a machine with no CD-ROM, but it is a dinosaur that never was designed very well.

 

Huh? Enlighten me ..........

 

Thanks Abraxas,

I too would be interested in more info on this "marking "...

I tried the bad disk in my Spouse's Zip-Drive and it read it fine!

However, my drive also reads my other Zip-Disks OK.

Something peculiar to that particular Disk & My Drive?

I've transferred all of the Zip-Disk files to my Hard Drive, just in case.

I may go to CD-RW backups or use the Maxtor One-Touch External HDD that I'm using to backup just the C-Partition at this point.

 

I have an internal Zip 100 on one PC, and an external Zip 100 drive on another PC, and I interchange files frequently using the same Zip Disk. Never had a disk go bad though. I use Zips for daily backups, then copy the ZipDisk to CD-R. I save to a CD Burn folder before writing to CD, and copy the CD Burn folder to external HDD. How's that being you know what???

Ramona

 

Hi Ramona!

Yes, that seems like a little...you know what - retentive, to some extent!

So far, I've made sure all of my Zip-Disk files are also on my 160GB HDD so that it will require two failures; the HDD failing plus a Zip-Disk failure before I risk any data loss.

Then, I'm thinking of using my Maxtor One-Touch external USB2 160GB HDD, that's used currently for Oper Sys backups (about a 10GB image), to backup my D-partition data that is [currently] backed-up on the Zip-Disks.

Am I missing anything?

Nice hearing from you again! Netscape 7.x rocks!

 

I don't have any particulars on how the Zip disks are "marked for death ". It's just been my experience that when one Zip drive says that a disk is unusable and unformattable, I get the same message in my other drives. So I had assumed that the disk was somehow "marked" so that it would not be used again.

How the Iomega software determines how much useful life remains on a disk is also mysterious, but I get the same amount of lifetime in all my drives and once that time expires, I can't even format the disk. Perhaps it tracks the number of hours of use and writes that to the disk.

In any case, I no longer use any of the password protection features of these disks so that all the extra software is not necessary. I install just the driver and it acts just like any other disk.