How to get an Iomega Zip Drive to operate with OS 10x

[Fishrrman]

Ah, ok, HFS (no plus).
That went out a LONG time ago, if I remember.
Hmmm... see this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_File_System_(Apple):

"With the introduction of Mac OS X 10.6, Apple dropped support for formatting or writing HFS disks and images, which remained supported as read-onlyvolumes until macOS 10.15.[1] Starting with macOS 10.15, HFS disks can no longer be read."

But HFS+ still works fine.

I'll reckon that very few ZIP disks were ever formatted (originally) for HFS. By the time the ZIP came out (wikipedia says late 1994), most folks were using HFS+.

 

[6nemax]

I've just tried to mount a zip 100 in USB on my Sonoma M2 macbook, it works without a problem, without any particular driver.

 

[skhisma]

I found a USB Zip 250 on eBay. Plugging it in and was prompted with a system alert about allowing USB access. After accepting I was able to see it in Finder and read a Zip100 disk. It having been 20 years since I used a Zip drive I ejected from Finder, not the drive. The drive disappeared from Finder and now will not show back up.

It's quite possible that this thing was just on its last legs and died but does anyone have any suggestions on how to possibly get it to reappear in Finder? I've tried unplugging and rebooting with no luck.

 

[PaulD-UK]

Plug it in > Disk Utility > Select the disk > Mount?

 

[skhisma]

Plug it in > Disk Utility > Select the disk > Mount?

Not showing in DiskUtility either.

I think it may have just been dumb luck that I was able to copy a single disk before it finally gave up the ghost. Inserting a new disk results in what I would describe as a "trying to read" noise repeated a few times and the light doesn't come on. When trying to eject results in a whirring noise, no ejection, and a slow blinking light on the drive. So possible just got a bum drive.

 

[PaulD-UK]

"Inserting a new disk..."
Maybe the new disk is not in a compatible format?

 

[skhisma]

Maybe the new disk is not in a compatible format?

That's definitely a possibility. Pretty sure these are all FAT32 or NTFS but honestly have no idea what's on most of them. That said I would expect to see the device in Disk Utility with an unknown volume. Definitely leaning more towards thinking something in the drive gave up after reading the first disk. Just rotten luck. 😢

 

[weckart]

All the original design Zip100 drives were mechanically identical. The only differentiation is the logic board and connection port. Back in the day when I was trying to source SCSI Zip drives for my legacy Macs; those were hard to find and were very expensive as a lot of musicians were still still storing samples on SCSI Zip drives connected to their equipment. As the mechanical transport was by far the weakest link in the drive, I got a couple of non-working SCSI drives (Click of Death confirmed) and found a couple of working Parallel Port drives, that nobody wanted back then for pennies. Swapped the top mechanics over, which was very easy and ended up with two working SCSI drives for not very much.

If you can find a cheap working PP drive, it might be worth swapping the top mechanics over as the heads often went out of alignment slightly before the Click of Death set in. That is when you would get disks sometimes mounting and sometimes being uncooperative.

 

[Fishrrman]

weckart ...

Could you be a little more specific about what "the top mechanics" ARE...?

 

[weckart]

The drive transport. Open the Zip up and it's pretty much self-explanatory. You don't even need tools IIRR.