what OS runs Zip drives?
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
I came across my old zip drive and some zip disks. I am curious what is on the disks, but my Windows system won't run them. Back in the day I though that these would be the ultimate in archive storage.
So is there an OS (Linux?) that might still be able to run Zip drives?
Seems like my question should be a Haiku:
Old Zip Drive Don't run
once was nice choice of Archives
How Much have we lost?
Or
Perfect OS is Needed.
(I am better at limericks.)
hardware
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
add a comment |
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
I came across my old zip drive and some zip disks. I am curious what is on the disks, but my Windows system won't run them. Back in the day I though that these would be the ultimate in archive storage.
So is there an OS (Linux?) that might still be able to run Zip drives?
Seems like my question should be a Haiku:
Old Zip Drive Don't run
once was nice choice of Archives
How Much have we lost?
Or
Perfect OS is Needed.
(I am better at limericks.)
hardware
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
It depends what interface your drive has. At one time or another they used IDE, ATAPI, USB, Parallel printer port, Firewire, and SCSI.
– alephzero
5 hours ago
2
Possible duplicate of Connecting Iomega Zip (parallel port) to modern PC
– traal
3 hours ago
add a comment |
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
I came across my old zip drive and some zip disks. I am curious what is on the disks, but my Windows system won't run them. Back in the day I though that these would be the ultimate in archive storage.
So is there an OS (Linux?) that might still be able to run Zip drives?
Seems like my question should be a Haiku:
Old Zip Drive Don't run
once was nice choice of Archives
How Much have we lost?
Or
Perfect OS is Needed.
(I am better at limericks.)
hardware
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
I came across my old zip drive and some zip disks. I am curious what is on the disks, but my Windows system won't run them. Back in the day I though that these would be the ultimate in archive storage.
So is there an OS (Linux?) that might still be able to run Zip drives?
Seems like my question should be a Haiku:
Old Zip Drive Don't run
once was nice choice of Archives
How Much have we lost?
Or
Perfect OS is Needed.
(I am better at limericks.)
hardware
hardware
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
edited 5 hours ago
jdv
1,9441930
1,9441930
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
asked 5 hours ago
Neal Cleary
161
161
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Neal Cleary is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
1
It depends what interface your drive has. At one time or another they used IDE, ATAPI, USB, Parallel printer port, Firewire, and SCSI.
– alephzero
5 hours ago
2
Possible duplicate of Connecting Iomega Zip (parallel port) to modern PC
– traal
3 hours ago
add a comment |
1
It depends what interface your drive has. At one time or another they used IDE, ATAPI, USB, Parallel printer port, Firewire, and SCSI.
– alephzero
5 hours ago
2
Possible duplicate of Connecting Iomega Zip (parallel port) to modern PC
– traal
3 hours ago
1
1
It depends what interface your drive has. At one time or another they used IDE, ATAPI, USB, Parallel printer port, Firewire, and SCSI.
– alephzero
5 hours ago
It depends what interface your drive has. At one time or another they used IDE, ATAPI, USB, Parallel printer port, Firewire, and SCSI.
– alephzero
5 hours ago
2
2
Possible duplicate of Connecting Iomega Zip (parallel port) to modern PC
– traal
3 hours ago
Possible duplicate of Connecting Iomega Zip (parallel port) to modern PC
– traal
3 hours ago
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
up vote
4
down vote
ZIP drives come with many different types of interfaces. The most prevalent were:
- Internal IDE version, most commonly installed in PCs.
- External Parallel port version, most commonly connected to PCs.
- Internal SCSI version, most commonly installed in early Macs.
- External SCSI version, most commonly connected to Macs, or other computers that commonly had DB-25 external SCSI ports (i.e. Amiga).
So, the first thing you need to determine is which version you have. Actually, it's not so easy to visually distinguish the external SCSI from the external parallel port version. ZIP also made an external drive that supported both of these.
Assuming you have an external drive, it's not a trivial matter to use it today. You are unlikely to find a modern computer with an external SCSI port. Some modern PCs do have the old Parallel Port, but it will need to be specifically configured for the ZIP and you will need the Driver that was designed to use it. Which means you will need to be running the OS that supported that driver - probably an old versions of Windows 9x.
The only ZIP drive that is easily supported with a modern computer is the internal IDE version, simply because you can attach it to a modern USB<->IDE converter and use it from a USB port. Then, the only issue is having an OS that supports whatever filesystem is present on your ZIP disks.
More specific answers will require a better description of what you have:
- Which version of ZIP drive hardware?
- Which filesystem is used on the ZIP disks?
- What kind of computer/OS do you have that may support the right interface or be able to use some USB converter?
- Are you willing to setup a special computer, or at least a virtual machine, to try to read your ZIP disks?
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
4
down vote
ZIP drives come with many different types of interfaces. The most prevalent were:
- Internal IDE version, most commonly installed in PCs.
- External Parallel port version, most commonly connected to PCs.
- Internal SCSI version, most commonly installed in early Macs.
- External SCSI version, most commonly connected to Macs, or other computers that commonly had DB-25 external SCSI ports (i.e. Amiga).
So, the first thing you need to determine is which version you have. Actually, it's not so easy to visually distinguish the external SCSI from the external parallel port version. ZIP also made an external drive that supported both of these.
Assuming you have an external drive, it's not a trivial matter to use it today. You are unlikely to find a modern computer with an external SCSI port. Some modern PCs do have the old Parallel Port, but it will need to be specifically configured for the ZIP and you will need the Driver that was designed to use it. Which means you will need to be running the OS that supported that driver - probably an old versions of Windows 9x.
The only ZIP drive that is easily supported with a modern computer is the internal IDE version, simply because you can attach it to a modern USB<->IDE converter and use it from a USB port. Then, the only issue is having an OS that supports whatever filesystem is present on your ZIP disks.
More specific answers will require a better description of what you have:
- Which version of ZIP drive hardware?
- Which filesystem is used on the ZIP disks?
- What kind of computer/OS do you have that may support the right interface or be able to use some USB converter?
- Are you willing to setup a special computer, or at least a virtual machine, to try to read your ZIP disks?
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
add a comment |
up vote
4
down vote
ZIP drives come with many different types of interfaces. The most prevalent were:
- Internal IDE version, most commonly installed in PCs.
- External Parallel port version, most commonly connected to PCs.
- Internal SCSI version, most commonly installed in early Macs.
- External SCSI version, most commonly connected to Macs, or other computers that commonly had DB-25 external SCSI ports (i.e. Amiga).
So, the first thing you need to determine is which version you have. Actually, it's not so easy to visually distinguish the external SCSI from the external parallel port version. ZIP also made an external drive that supported both of these.
Assuming you have an external drive, it's not a trivial matter to use it today. You are unlikely to find a modern computer with an external SCSI port. Some modern PCs do have the old Parallel Port, but it will need to be specifically configured for the ZIP and you will need the Driver that was designed to use it. Which means you will need to be running the OS that supported that driver - probably an old versions of Windows 9x.
The only ZIP drive that is easily supported with a modern computer is the internal IDE version, simply because you can attach it to a modern USB<->IDE converter and use it from a USB port. Then, the only issue is having an OS that supports whatever filesystem is present on your ZIP disks.
More specific answers will require a better description of what you have:
- Which version of ZIP drive hardware?
- Which filesystem is used on the ZIP disks?
- What kind of computer/OS do you have that may support the right interface or be able to use some USB converter?
- Are you willing to setup a special computer, or at least a virtual machine, to try to read your ZIP disks?
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
add a comment |
up vote
4
down vote
up vote
4
down vote
ZIP drives come with many different types of interfaces. The most prevalent were:
- Internal IDE version, most commonly installed in PCs.
- External Parallel port version, most commonly connected to PCs.
- Internal SCSI version, most commonly installed in early Macs.
- External SCSI version, most commonly connected to Macs, or other computers that commonly had DB-25 external SCSI ports (i.e. Amiga).
So, the first thing you need to determine is which version you have. Actually, it's not so easy to visually distinguish the external SCSI from the external parallel port version. ZIP also made an external drive that supported both of these.
Assuming you have an external drive, it's not a trivial matter to use it today. You are unlikely to find a modern computer with an external SCSI port. Some modern PCs do have the old Parallel Port, but it will need to be specifically configured for the ZIP and you will need the Driver that was designed to use it. Which means you will need to be running the OS that supported that driver - probably an old versions of Windows 9x.
The only ZIP drive that is easily supported with a modern computer is the internal IDE version, simply because you can attach it to a modern USB<->IDE converter and use it from a USB port. Then, the only issue is having an OS that supports whatever filesystem is present on your ZIP disks.
More specific answers will require a better description of what you have:
- Which version of ZIP drive hardware?
- Which filesystem is used on the ZIP disks?
- What kind of computer/OS do you have that may support the right interface or be able to use some USB converter?
- Are you willing to setup a special computer, or at least a virtual machine, to try to read your ZIP disks?
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
ZIP drives come with many different types of interfaces. The most prevalent were:
- Internal IDE version, most commonly installed in PCs.
- External Parallel port version, most commonly connected to PCs.
- Internal SCSI version, most commonly installed in early Macs.
- External SCSI version, most commonly connected to Macs, or other computers that commonly had DB-25 external SCSI ports (i.e. Amiga).
So, the first thing you need to determine is which version you have. Actually, it's not so easy to visually distinguish the external SCSI from the external parallel port version. ZIP also made an external drive that supported both of these.
Assuming you have an external drive, it's not a trivial matter to use it today. You are unlikely to find a modern computer with an external SCSI port. Some modern PCs do have the old Parallel Port, but it will need to be specifically configured for the ZIP and you will need the Driver that was designed to use it. Which means you will need to be running the OS that supported that driver - probably an old versions of Windows 9x.
The only ZIP drive that is easily supported with a modern computer is the internal IDE version, simply because you can attach it to a modern USB<->IDE converter and use it from a USB port. Then, the only issue is having an OS that supports whatever filesystem is present on your ZIP disks.
More specific answers will require a better description of what you have:
- Which version of ZIP drive hardware?
- Which filesystem is used on the ZIP disks?
- What kind of computer/OS do you have that may support the right interface or be able to use some USB converter?
- Are you willing to setup a special computer, or at least a virtual machine, to try to read your ZIP disks?
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
answered 5 hours ago
Brian H
16k59138
16k59138
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
add a comment |
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
USB 3 introduced USB Attached SCSI, i.e. devices that attach via USB but use the SCSI instruction set; support was implemented in all three of the main desktop operating systems around 2014. So in theory it should be really cheap and easy to connect a SCSI drive via USB. But your answer is correct; I can find no such cable. Just a bunch of expensive and long-discontinued older options that presumably do a lot more work or else require special drivers.
– Tommy
4 hours ago
add a comment |
Neal Cleary is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Neal Cleary is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Neal Cleary is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Neal Cleary is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
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1
It depends what interface your drive has. At one time or another they used IDE, ATAPI, USB, Parallel printer port, Firewire, and SCSI.
– alephzero
5 hours ago
2
Possible duplicate of Connecting Iomega Zip (parallel port) to modern PC
– traal
3 hours ago