All too good to be true...

I finally got my A1200 back from Amigakit who've been working on it for months and months, checking to see how things were running, like my animation work. It was all fine, with both the ACA board and Blizzard PPC which I decided to re-install.

Unfortunately, I noticed the front plate of the zip drive (see pic below) had come off, and the eject button which recedes deep into the mechanism (see pic again) had come loose. Most likely this was during transit and not by Amigakit.

I attempted to replace the front plate, I found I couldn't get it aligned right, with the eject button through the appropriate hole (also labelled in pic.)

I believe, in attempting to replace the plate, I have broken the zip drive, as upon inserting a 100MB zip disk (unwisely) its icon did not appear on workbench, and so now I cannot eject the zip disk.

Not sure what to do, will tell Amigakit about this too.

Last edited by RoqueFort on 01-Dec-2013 at 02:35 PM.

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@RoqueFort

Sorry to hear that.

If you have a decent set of precision screw drivers you should at least be able to dismantle the drive in order to retrieve your disk. You might have a bet chance of re-assembling the drive properly too.

I have both parallel* and IDE Zip drives here that I don't use anymore should you need a replacement drive. In future I'd advice moving away from Zip100 as a storage media.

*Anyone know if there is an Amiga driver for parallel Zip drives?

Quote:

Rob wrote: @RoqueFort Sorry to hear that. If you have a decent set of precision screw drivers you should at least be able to dismantle the drive in order to retrieve your disk.

I did have that Idea, but without a working zip drive, the 100MB disks are pretty useless too! I got the zip drive to back up important files, but now I have USB I could backup onto memory sticks instead.

Quote:

I have both parallel* and IDE Zip drives here that I don't use anymore should you need a replacement drive. In future I'd advice moving away from Zip100 as a storage media. *Anyone know if there is an Amiga driver for parallel Zip drives?

Parallel drive? You mean an external one that plugs into the parallel port? I wondered why I could never get one like that- would have been so much easier than mounting one internally, as I have!

As for moving away from Zip, I accept it's an old, obsolete formula that is no longer manufactured; I did condiser migrating to memory sticks, it just seems a shame to dispose of the zip drive and disks- I've had some of them for more than 15 years!

_________________
SEX SUX

Sex doesn't prove to me that sex doesn't suck.

@RoqueFort

Try E-Bay. There are some 100Mb internal ones for around a fiver.

@RoqueFort

It seems that the standard Amiga parallel port wouldn't handle the external Zip drives although a third party port would have.

I just had a look and we have 3 IDE Zip drives here at the moment if you do end up needing a replacement.

@RoqueFort

I had an external scsi one which suddenly started eating disks. Not cool. Shied away from iomega ever since.

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This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Was that known as the click of death or similar?

@RoqueFort

Have you looked at usb (ext) zip drives?
After I got my denab usb card, I moved over the the ext usb 250/100 drive. since I work with pc's and Amiga...
It's easier to use with fat95 and cross dos for moving files.

M

I got my zip drive some fifteen years ago, with my first towered Amiga. Also had a 4GB hard drive, which was considered substantial back then, even for a PC or Macintosh! Floppy disks were also still widely used, for backing up and moving files between computers.

For files that were too large to backup and move with floppy, larger removable media was brought in, such as the LS120, Zip drive and Jaz drive, the "big brother" of the Zip!

I chose the "Old" Zip drive that can only take 100MB disks, to back up large files like my animation work. I thought that would be all I needed, but some of my work, such as Black Magic Castle nearly filled a 100MB Zip disk, while the City of Cold was spread over three!

Like some of you say, Zip drives have been all but phased out, since people now use re-writable DVDs to back up, and more recently, memory sticks. Maybe I should also migrate away from Zip to memory stick.

It just seems a shame, as I have many Zip disks, some of which haven't been used! I'll have to think carefully, but thanks for all your info.

_________________
SEX SUX

Sex doesn't prove to me that sex doesn't suck.

@RoqueFort

Dude get rid of that thing. eBay the disks off for a buck a piece or whatever, and throw the drive out. Use USB sticks and have done with, or back-up to DVD. Zip disks failing is a "when" not an "if" and when one eats something you really care for you're going to be kicking yourself.

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The problem with AmigaOS on PPC isn't that PPC is big-endian. The problem with AmigaOS on PPC is that PPC is dead-endian.

@RoqueFort

Keep the Zip gear for sentimental reasons if you like but I'd recommend switching to a more reliable media now.

If you do need a replacement drive to recover your data give me a shout. I'm not far from Amigakit so might* be able to arrange something with them if your not confident about dealing directly with a stranger.

*provided Amigakit are happy to do that.

@TheDungeonDelver, Rob

Sound advice from both of you.

Think it's indeed time for me to put the concept of Zip disks as backup to rest, especially now my A1200 has Subway USB, and I can get single memory sticks with more capacity than all my 100MB zip disks put together!

I shall dispose of the broken drive, I know a good recycling centre which takes old computer parts! However, I can't see anyone wanting the zip disks, nor do I want to chuck them in the rubbish!

So, I shall keep the zip disks just in case, or only for old time's sake!

Quote:

If you do need a replacement drive to recover your data give me a shout. I'm not far from Amigakit so might* be able to arrange something with them if your not confident about dealing directly with a stranger.

You might like to do that anyway, as Amigakit are more likely to be able to do something with odd amiga gadgetry, rather than it just sitting in your home. Such is the case with the old Blizzard '060 that was damaged when I had the terrible accident with my old A1200T. Amigakit may still have that, as I decided it was better off with them than me.

So, I shall use memory sticks to back up from now on. The only real problem is they're so tiny, and so likely to be lost!

I already have a 4GB SanDisk stick, which I imagine is pretty average quality. Anyone know what a good quality is for Amiga USB?

_________________
SEX SUX

Sex doesn't prove to me that sex doesn't suck.