Iomega ZIP

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After my upgrade from Win98 to Win2K Pro, I have lost access to the files on my ZIP drive. I suspect this to by a file format issue.

My Win 98 installation was using the FAT16 file format (I know, I know–it takes me a while to move on…), but I upgraded to NTFS with the new OS. The drive is working fine, as I still have access to the contents of the Tools disk that originally came with the drive. The two disks that I have filled, however, appear to be unformatted. Is there any way to save my files???

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NTFS would not affect the contents of the drive, because it would not upgrade the ZIP format. Whe you refer to the tools disk are you talking about the floppy version?

You may also want to visit Iomega’s website and see if you have the version of software that is 2000 compatible.

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Thanks for your reply. I know the format of the ZIP disk would not have been altered, but wasn’t sure about NTFS reading the ZIP disk. I know this shouldn’t be a problem, but wondered if this could be a Win2K bug of some sort.

The Tools disk is a ZIP disk that came with the ZIP drive–it contains all the initial tools and drivers. It is odd that I can access it, but not other disks. There is even a folder I created on that disk prior to my upgrade. I have access to it, but not the other disks. There were no problems with either of the other disks prior to the upgrade. It is too much of a coincidence for me that both disks failed simultaneously while I upgraded my OS.

I have been to the Iomega and Microsoft websites, but could find nothing useful. I downloaded the latest IomegaWare software, but it made no difference. Do you have any other suggestions?

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I agree that it’s too much of a coincidence. One weirdness, shame on me, two weirdnesses, shame on Windows. There’s a pattern there.

I don’t know of any issues with 2000 and ZIP drives, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. My suggestion would be to contact Iomega about it and drill them until you get some kind of answer – as a consumer of their product you have that right and they should be willing to look into it.

Can you take the drive to a computer running Windows 98 and test it to see if you have access to the disks?

In regards to the tools disk, is it a ZIP disk, a floppy, what is it?

And then lastly, depending on the connection type (USB, parallel, internal ATAPI) you may want to check with the motherboard or system manufacturer to see if there are potential issues with the hardware drivers. It’s possible that under Windows 2000, access to the drive via hardware is munged up for some reason, since hardware access is completely different than the 9x line of operating systems.

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Thanks for you help. Contacting Iomega was my next option, but wanted to find out if anyone else out there had heard of anything.

My ZIP is an internal ATAPI, but I plan to take the disks themselves to another computer to rule out their corruption. The Tools disk itself is a ZIP disk. I have access to the files on that disk, which is even more bizzare!! That’s why I need to rule out the corruption of the other disks.

Well, thanks for you help.

Dear Iomega…

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