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April 12th, 2008 20:00
Unable to format ZIP 100 disk
Was using my ZIP yesterday. Today I can't access it. I used a new one & backed up again to the new ZIP from my XP laptop. All went well. I want to format the ZIP that seems to have gone bad. I go to Explorer, I right click on the E drive (my zip drive), but that's it. I go nowhere. No menu comes down. The hourglass just stays there until I do ctrl/alt/enter to stop it. Am I out of luck or can I format this disk somehow.
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jackshack
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April 12th, 2008 23:00
Is this something you have done before? I was always led to believe that Iomega had a rather special version of fat 16 on the 100 MB drive and you had to have the Iomega Ware installed in order to format it. I'm afraid I don't know why it would be hanging the computer, though, unless the disk is corrupted and won't permit the drive to respond.
If you like you can explore Iomega's site for an answer. I found this on it.
RoHe
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April 13th, 2008 00:00
You definitely need IomegaWare installed in order to reformat that Zip disk. But that should be accessible by right-clicking the drive in My Computer and selecting Properties.
Try this: Reboot and then insert the new/good disk in the drive and try the same thing. If you get to the Properties screen, all is well with the drive. And in that case the old disk is trashed.
In my experience, once a Zip disk starts actiing up, it's time to get rid of it. Even with reformatting, the number of spare sectors will be low so that if there's another problem, it won't be able to save the files before it crashes again.
There's a neat free program available from Steve Gibson's site to test your Zip drive and disks. It's called tip.exe (Trouble in Paradise). I've about had it with my Zip drive because it started eating brand new-never used Zip100 disks. Bought an 80-GB Seagate external USB hard drive for $70. A lot less then the old Zip drive cost and no more trashed disks.
While you're at that site, take a look at all the other amazing freeware that Steve offers, plus his commercial SpinRite utility for recovering hard drives.
Ron