In the beginning, personal computers used cassette tape drives. Then came floppy drives, followed by hard drives. And then came removable media drives such as SyQuest, Bernoulli, and – perhaps best know of all – Zip.
- Iomega Hdd Mac
- Mac Os Zip Drive 100 Icon Iomega Drive
- Iomega Zip 100 Usb Drive
- Mac Os Zip Drive 100 Icon Iomega Download
- Iomega Zip 100 External Drive
- Mac Os Zip Drive 100 Icon Iomega Pro
To use the Zip drive, insert a 100MB. Zip disk, then select the Zip drive letter or disk icon on your computer. Page 11 File menu, or drag the disk icon to the Trash icon. Windows 98 systems – Push the disk eject button or use the Iomega software eject command. Remove the Zip disk from the drive when your Zip drive is not in use. Iomega driver free download - Iomega NAS, Iomega QuikSync, Digidesign CoreAudio Driver, and many more programs. Update Mac OS 8.5 or 8.5.1 to OS 8.6 for improved system performance. Jan 22, 2008 I just found a bunch of iOmega zip drive disks (the 100 meg kind) in a closet as I was cleaning it out. Some of the Mac G4's came with an optional zip drive built-in) Additionally, some print shops still keep zip drives handy because one never knows when someone is going to bring a disk in.
- Dec 29, 2016 As described in the previous post, I’m using SCSI IOmega ZIP (Z100S) drive as a mass storage for my Macintosh Plus. I prepared zip floppies with a few versions of the Macintosh System installed - if you’re into retro computing it’s fun to compare.
- Iomega Zip 100 Driver for Windows 7 32 bit, Windows 7 64 bit, Windows 10, 8, XP. Uploaded on 3/7/2019, downloaded 6072 times, receiving a 98/100 rating by 3780 users.
Before Zip
Iomega had made a name for itself with its Bernoulli Box, a lower cost alternative to SyQuest drives with their hard disk platters. SyQuest had established itself with a 44 MB 5-1/4″ cartridge drive system using the same 130mm platters found in hard drives.
By contrast, Bernoulli cartridges had a floppy disk spinning at 3,000 rpm, using the Bernoulli Principle to pull the disk’s surface toward the read-write head. Unfortunately, the original Bernoulli cartridge system used huge media, measuring about 8″ x 11″ (210 x 275 mm).
Bernoulli Box II used a smaller cartridge along with a drive that fit in a standard 5-1/4″ bay. Bernoulli drives were noted for their reliability, and they came in many different capacities.
Beyond Floppy Disks
Although Apple wasn’t the first to use 3.5″ floppy disks, it was the first to standardize on them instead of the older, larger 5-1/4″ floppies. In the PC world, single-sided 3.5″ floppies held 360 KB of data, double-sided disks 720 KB. On Macs, the same disks stored 400 KB and 800 KB respectively.
High-density (HD) 3.5″ floppies arrived in 1987, and both PCs and Macs used them to store 1.4 MB of information. The same year IBM introduced its DSED (Double Sided Extended Density) 2.88 MB floppy drive and disks, which never caught on. The market needed a removable media drive with more capacity than floppies but at a much better price than SyQuest.
The Zip 100
Iomega brought its Zip drive and Zip disks to market in March 1995 with 100 MB capacity. Zip uses a cartridge a little larger and somewhat thicker than a 3.5″ floppy disk. It was also far faster than a floppy drive, which is part of what kept the competing LS-120 SuperDisk from catching on – it had higher capacity than Zip but was far, far slower. (Interestingly, SuperDisk began as an Iomega project that they ditched in favor of Zip. 3M acquired the technology from Iomega and brought it to market.)
With their relatively high capacity and low price (initially $20 per cartridge), Zip took off, selling nearly one million in 1995. A few Zip disks could back up most hard drives in 1995; one Zip disk could hold a bootable system plus diagnostics. Zip was also a great way to send files out to a service bureau.
Zip disks came preformatted for Macs or PCs, and either could be reformatted for the other platform using Iomega Tools.
A Word of Warning
The SCSI Zip drive allows you to choose one of two possible SCSI IDs, 5 or 6. SCSI ID 6 is rock solid, but SCSI ID 5 can have issues when other devices on the SCSI bus are moving a lot of data. Avoid using SCSI ID 5 if at all possible.
How Fast (or Slow) Is It?
In 2013, Lui Gough tested several different types of Zip drives on his AMD Sempton 3300+ powered PC running Windows XP SP3. Here are the average and maximum transfer rates by drive mechanism:
- ATAPI Zip 100: 1.0 MB/s avg., 1.4 Mb/s max
- USB Zip 100, bus powered: 0.7 MB/s avg., 0.8 MB/s max
- SCSI Zip 100: 0.6 MB/s avg., 0.7 MB/s max
- Parallel port Zip 100: 0.2 MB/s across the board
Cam Giesbrecht ran benchmark tests on his Mac Quadra 605, also comparing HD floppy and hard drive performance. His results:
- floppy disk, writes @ 61.6 KB/s, reads @ 78.6 KB/s
- SCSI Zip disk, writes @ 1084 KB/s, reads @ 1123 KB/s (50% higher than SCSI on PC)
- internal Quantum hard drive, writes @ 1497 KB/s, reads @ 1850 KB/s
- external Quantum hard drive, writes @ 1367 KB/s, reads @ 1367 KB/s
The SCSI Zip drive performs better on this Mac and the one tested by Lui Gough on his Windows PC, in part because Macs were optimized for SCSI drives in those days while PCs were optimized for ATA drives. The Zip shows itself to be a decent backup medium, writing data at 70-80% of the write speed of the two tested hard drives.
As for the floppy, there is no comparison. Zip stores 70x as much data and runs about 15x as fast.
Finally, the Iomega Zip FAQ benchmarks Zip 100, SyQuest 44 (an older technology), and the hard drive in a 1989 Mac IIci, obtaining these results:
- hard drive: 119 KB/s random reads, 1099 KB/s 256K sequential reads, 71.1 KB/s random writes, 1216 KB/s 256K sequential writes
- Zip 100: 38.5 KB/s random reads, 1186 KB/s 256K sequential reads, 38.9 KB/s random writes, 1189 KB/s 256K sequential writes
- SyQuest 44: 37.3 KB/s random reads, 579 KB/s 256K sequential reads, 36.1 KB/s random writes, 579 KB/s 256K sequential writes
This seems to be comparing a 1989 vintage hard drive with two removable media options. Even an older hard drive outperforms Zip 100 and SyQuest 44 for random reads and writes, but the big surprise is that for 256 KB sequential reads, Zip beats the hard drive, while it takes a close second for 256 KB sequential writes, just behind the older hard drive.
Overall Zip had decent performance, especially compared to older hard drives. With contemporary mid-1990s hard drives, Zip would fall further behind yet still acquit itself nicely.
Lots of Options
Iomega Hdd Mac
Supported Platforms
As long as Iomega kept things simple, Zip continued to grow and grow. It supported most operating system of that era:
- MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows, although Windows 7 and later will not work with parallel port drives
- Mac System 6 through Mac OS 9.2.2 plus OS X (System 6 requires an Iomega Drive version prior to 5.0, as does the Mac Plus)
- IBM OS/2
- AmigaOS 3.5 and later
- Oracle Solaris 8-11
- some Linux and BSD versions, although Zip is not universally supported
- some users have made SCSI Zip drives work with Apple II and Atari ST computers
Later versions of Zip supported 250 MB (launched December 1998) and 750 MB (August 2002) of storage. Zip drive sales began their decline in 1999 as CD-R and DVD-R grew in popularity, followed by the explosion in USB thumb drives.
Driver Downloads
- IomegaWare 4.0.2 for Windows 98, Me, 2000, and XP. Not compatible with Windows 95 or NT.
- Iomega Zip 100MB USB Drivers Download, Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10.
- Iomega Zip 100MB Parallel Port Drivers Download, Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10.
- Iomega Zip 100MB ATAPI Drivers Download, Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10.
- Iomega Zip 100MB SCSI Drivers Download, Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10.
- IomegaWare 4.0.2 for Mac OS 8.6 or later, OS X 10.1-10.2.1. Drivers are not needed with OS X 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6.
- Zip driver 4.2 for Mac Plus running System 6
Interfaces
Zip drives were available in numerous interfaces, including:
- IDE, an early ATA standard that does not support ATAPI commands
- ATAPI, a later version of ATA specifically for removable media; Zip 100, 250, and 750
- SCSI, internal and external, found on almost all Macs of the era, Zip 100 and Zip 250
- IEEE 1284 for parallel ports with passthrough for your printer, Zip 100 and Zip 250
- Zip Plus, an external drive that works with SCSI or parallel port, Zip 100 only
There were also three later implementations:
- USB 1.1, Zip 100 and Zip 250
- FireWire/IEEE 1394, Zip 250 and Zip 750
- USB 2.0, Zip 750
Incompatibilities
With each additional Zip format, Iomega further muddied the waters. It was simple when every Zip disk stored 100 MB and every Zip drive could read and write to it.
Zip 250 drives can read and write both Zip 100 and Zip 250 disks, although they write to Zip 100 disks very slowly. Zip 100 drives automatically eject Zip 250 disks as unreadable.
Mac Os Zip Drive 100 Icon Iomega Drive
Zip 750 drives can read Zip 100 disks but not write to them at all. It is fully compatible with Zip 250 disks. Zip 100 and Zip 250 drives will eject a Zip 750 drive as unreadable.
Interestingly, Zip was listed as one of the 25 worst technology products (#15) by PCWorld in 2006 – and one of the 50 best (#23) in 2007!
Iomega was acquired by EMC in June 2008, making it part of the world’s largest storage company. EMC and Lenovo partnered in 2013 to create LenovoEMC, which took over Iomega’s business.
* No, it isn’t a typo. Compleat is a legitimate, albeit archaic, spelling for complete. As Kenneth G. Wilson says in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English: “This obsolete spelling of the adjective complete suggests an air of antiquity that seems to please some of those who name things….” We find that fitting for Low End Mac’s Compleat Guides to “obsolete” hardware and software.
Further Reading
- Zip Drive, Wikipedia
- The Iomega Zip Drive FAQ, 1995
- Iomega Zip Drive 100 Parallel, Centre for Computing History
- Our Favorite “Forgotten Tech” – from BeOS to Zip Drives, Ars Technica, 2012
- Using a Zip Drive on a Mac Plus, Michael A. Peters, Jags House, 1998
- Mac Plus and Zip Drives Revisited, Vintage Mac World, 2007
Keywords: #zipdrive #zipdisk #iomegazip
Short link: http://goo.gl/JZA9SU
searchword: compleatzip
This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.
Since Zip disks use the same file structure used on hard drives(HFS or HFS+), you can recover files from Zipdisks using the same utilities you would use to recover files fromhard drives. Two of the best utilities are Alsoft's Disk Warrior andSymantec's NortonUtilities. Before using these tools to recover files, you shouldfirst follow the steps described below.
Checking for physical damage
Before you attempt to recover any files, see if the disk is physicallydamaged. To do this:
- Carefully slide the metal cartridge shutter aside.
- Look into the opening and carefully note the edge of the media.Be careful not to touch the media.
- While holding the shutter aside, rotate the media one full turn bypressing lightly on the silver hub with your thumb and turning it atthe same time.
- Closely examine the edge of the media. Look for any cuts, roughedges, wrinkles, or missing pieces.
If you do notice physical damage to the media of thedisk, attempting to recover files may also damage your Zip drive. Ifyou have a backup available or the data on the disk isn't crucial, youmight want to contact the disk manufacturer about having the diskreplaced.
Note: Physical damage to a disk and a constantclicking sound while the disk is in the drive may be an indicationthat the Zip drive might have the 'Click of Death'. For moreinformation, see the Knowledge Base document ARCHIVED: With Iomega Zip and Jaz drives, what is the Click of Death?
Running a diagnostic
Note: In Mac OS X, use FirstAid, a component of Disk Utility, to diagnose andrepair problems on your Zip disk.
If you do not notice any physical damage (or you do,but would like to attempt a recovery anyway), then the next step is torun a diagnostic on the drive and the disk. This will check the driveitself and the disk for any imperceptible damage. To do this, you'llneed the IomegaWare Tools utility available from Iomega's web site at:
Note: Even if you do have the IomegaWare software,check to make sure you have the latest version. Sometimes problems canbe fixed by updating your software to the latest version. For moreinformation, see the Apple knowledge base document:
Iomega Zip 100 Usb Drive
To run the diagnostic:
Mac Os Zip Drive 100 Icon Iomega Download
- Open the
Iomega Tools
folder. - Double-click the Tools icon.
- Click the icon with an image of two drives.
- Click the Push to Diagnose button.
Iomega Zip 100 External Drive
If the diagnostic reports 'Failed', there might be a physical problemwith the drive and/or disk. If it is an external Iomega Zip drive,contact Iomega Support for repair information at:
If it is an internal Iomega Zip drive that came with a Macintosh,contact Apple via the Apple Service & Support web site at:
Recovering files
Mac Os Zip Drive 100 Icon Iomega Pro
If the diagnostic reports 'Passed' and you're not hearing repetitiveclicking in the drive, then you can use one or both of the recoveryutilities mentioned above according to the directions supplied withthe software.