[SOLVED] Yet another Iomega zip drive question pls

[fisherjohnr]

Hello all,
Ive read through all the related posts on the zip drive but cant seem to get my head around it all.
I have about a dozen 100 M zip discs that I would like to get whatever stuff is on them (likely photos but also probably some music) , loaded over to my hard drive so that I can dispose of the discs and acrhive this stuff another way.
My recollection is that I had a scsi internal zip drive years back (not sure when - i'd say likely 20 years back or more) that got thrown out at some point in time. Probably 5-8 years ago I bought an external 250M Zip drive - USB - off of ebay that was supposedly in working condition so that I could recover the info on those discs but could not get it to work and gave up pretty quickly.
The problem then, and now (I have 3 old PC's, one a laptop with Vista, and desktops with XP and 95 and each show the exact same problem) is that the Iomega drive shows up in the list of active drives when I power it up (as in A,B,C,D etc) listed with a drive letter and saying Iomega but then as soon as I put a disc in the drive it will make the sounds like it is accessing it but then the drive goes poof on the list of drives under the my computer icon. If I pop the disc out it recognizes the drive again.
Also I do have one 250 M zip disc of unknown origins but when I put that in the zip drive the exact same thing happens.
So... is my zip drive the problem or is this some kind of compatibility issue. Ive read about the backwards/forward compatibility issues with different 100 vs 250M discs and as I said can't get my head around this problem. There's not any scsi vs usb drive issues are there?
I'm not adverse to buying another used drive but would be really frustrated if I bought another one and had the same problem.
Thanks and looking forward to some ideas.
Best regards John

 

[USAFRet]

If you an era compatible PC (you do)
And it is connected properly( seems to be)
and if the drive is recognized properly (seems to be)
....

It may just be that these 25+ year old zip disks are now unreadable.
Zip drives were unreliable when brand new.

Or, that hardware you got from fleabay is not as "working" as advertised.

 

[fisherjohnr]

Thanks for the quick reply. I guess I had that one in the back of my head behind the 'De-nile is not just a river in Egypt" block
Do you know how long ago the last disc was made? Thinking if I bought a NOS one that would allow me to test this theory that the drive is actually working and the discs are too old. Id want to do that before I throw the old discs and move on.
And I'll hold out in case someone knows of a way to perhaps swing a particular color of cat counterclockwise over the drive or some other magic trick I can try...... stubborn<<<<
Thanks again
John

 

[Math Geek]

it's been a long time but were the 100 mb disks even compatible with the 250 mb drive?

i seem to recall having to buy the 250 mb drive and then not being able to use the 100 mb disks with it. again it's been a long time but i seem to recall that being the case.

as for when those came out, i had the 100 mb usb drive when i was going to local community college back in 1995. think the 250 mb drive was only a year or so after that. i'd offer you the drive i had but i know i finally got rid of it a few years ago when cleaning out some old boxes of pc stuff. my guess is any drive you found to try is gonna be a roll of the dice anyway. they are just so old now, they just reached the end of their life cycle 15 years ago or more.

 

[USAFRet]

Released in 1994. 100MB was the first version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive

100MB possible out of production by 1999, replaced by 250MB

Even 25 Years Later, the Iomega Zip Is Unforgettable

Remember your old Zip drive? On its 25th birthday, we're exploring everything that was wonderful and weird about this classic '90s storage format.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[mdd1963]

I'd be surprised if any ZIp disks, save for those stored in Arizona or Death Valley, were not fully corroded by now.