marx404 wrote:
> Adela, not being sarcastic, but Iomega ZIP Disk? I only hope that you wish
> to recover data and not to store critical data on a ZIP drive. Just trying
> to be helpful, there are many who still risk the "click of death" form ZIP
> drives today (look it up on Google) it's Russian roulette if you ask me,
> especially when you can use CDR or DVDR reliably, which also is a format
> everyone uses now. I would also suggest USB thumb drives as an alternative.
>
When ZIP drives were introduced they were worthwhile, although not
exactly the most reliable devices that ever came down the pike. I tended
to make copies on two different discs to cut the odds of data loss. As
soon as CD drives and CD-R disks came down to affordable prices the ZIPs
were rendered totally obsolete in every respect that was important to
me: reliability, capacity, price and speed (I may have left a few things
out). Even with their questionable reliability, I found them better than
a big stack of 1.2 mb floppies. A few months after I quit using them our
church got a new pastor who was still using them. I gave him all my
discs and even threw in my drive, in case his failed and he was stuck
with a bunch of unreadable data. Incidentally, I live in Austin and Dell
used to have an outlet store that sold all kinds of stuff machines
rebuilt under warranty, parts stripped from unrepairable machines, etc.
(OT: there were many stories around town about great systems being built
by high-tech dumpster divers from their trash.) They always had a big
barrel full of MS mice for about $5 each and for a while a barrel of ZIP
disks for $1 or $2. I bought most of my ZIPs out of that barrel and
found them to be just as good as brand new ones. But---that was then,
this is now, and ZIPs are just about as obsolete as automobile cranks
and 5.25 inch floppies--more so even than 3.5 inch floppies.
Allen
) Adela