Iomega Zip 100 Drive Stopped Working in OS 10.4.4

Question

Iomega Zip 100 Drive Stopped Working in OS 10.4.4

We have 3 G4 Macs which have internal Zip 100 drives installed. they have all worked fine until we upgraded to system 10.4.4, and now the computer does not recognize the zip disk when inserted.

Iomega says that the software for the drives is native to OS X, and they do not have a driver update beyond 4.0.2. I am stumped in trying to figure out how to get the drives working again, and will welcome help on this problem.

Dudley

G4/1GHz, 7600 w/G3/500 MHz , G4/733 MHz Server, Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Feb 3, 2006 7:57 PM

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Answer 1

Feb 3, 2006 8:21 PM in response to Dudley Bogart

Hello! Have you tried inserting a disk and opening disk utility to see if it see's it and if you can re-format the cartridge? Tom

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Answer 2

Feb 3, 2006 9:20 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Yes, that is a great idea, but the computers will not recognize the disk to be able to reformat or use the disk at all. Thus, it appears to be an incompatibility in the driver information for the older Zip 100 drives, but there must be some sort of patch to make them work again.

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Answer 3

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Feb 3, 2006 9:49 PM in response to Dudley Bogart

Hi, Dudley. It looks like Iomega has abandoned the old and now very obsolete Zip 100 technology in favor of newer, larger, faster, more reliable, longer-lived, and higher-capacity removable media, notably the 35GB-per-cartridge Rev technology. I doubt that either Iomega or Apple will bother to write a driver for Zip 100 drives that is compatible with any recent version of OS X, never mind any future version.

When a 100MB Zip disk costs around $5 (when you can still find them), a 700MB CD-R costs 15 cents, a 4.7GB DVD-R costs $2, and huge, fast hard drives go for $.30-.$35/GB, there's just no reason to keep using Zip100 drives or disks. Put Zip's very high costs together with the very limited lifespan of a Zip disk, and you get a technology that is dead, dead, dead.

Find an old Mac that can still read your Zip disks, copy everything off all of them onto a FireWire hard drive, and say goodbye to Zips.

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Answer 4

Feb 4, 2006 8:09 AM in response to eww

Yes, I think you are absolutely correct. I can obviously reboot in system 9.2.2, and copy everything off the zip disks, and then just move everything over to CD-RW or DVD's for backup.

Intertia causes force of habit to cloud your vision, and while zip disks were nice to use in their time, it is probably time to part with the Zip and Jazz drives!

Thanks for your insight,
Dudley

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Answer 5

bxexile

Level 1

0 points

Feb 4, 2006 5:56 PM in response to Dudley Bogart

Hi I recently purchased an iMac G5 and wanted to connect my zip 100to the G5. I went to to Iomega's website and downloaded iomegaware v. 7.4.1 and installed it on my G5. It works like a charm. There may possibly be a difference between X.4.2 and X.4.4 but it is worth a try.
Good Luck
Len Wagner

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Answer 6

eww

Level 9

53,052 points

Feb 4, 2006 6:13 PM in response to bxexile

Hi, bxexile. Can you provide a link to the Iomegaware 7.4.1 download? There doesn't appear to be anything more recent than Iomegaware 4.0.2 on Iomega's web site, and a Google search for Iomegaware 7.4.1 turns up nothing.

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Answer 7

Feb 4, 2006 8:36 PM in response to Thomas Bryant

Hello Again! I'm using 10.3.6 but was curious to see if the zip from my G-4 that I removed worked so I put it into a firewire drive inserted a disk and got the "do you want to initialize" message. I ejected it put it in my G-3 with 9.2.2 to see if it was formated and poped right up. Then I put it back into the G-4 OS and initialized it and it works. But then I reinserted it into the G-3 and got the "do you want to intialize message". (and yes I had installed os9 drivers) So it appears that it's probably a disk driver issue. Tom

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Answer 8

Jul 30, 2006 8:38 AM in response to Dudley Bogart

As a note, it is definitely an issue of how the disk is formatted now in System X. Thus, if you want to switch back to System 9 (provided you have a G4 that allows you to use sysem 9), then you can use the Zip disk as originally formatted.

Download the information from the disc onto your hard drive or other storage device, and then reformat the Zip disks you want to use in System X. You can then copy the data back on to the Zip disk and you are up and running in Tiger.

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