zip drives

[taaron23]

i've been looking around for zip drives to use for file xfrs and backing up certain software. (quicken, quickbooks) the 250mb iomega usb zip drive, seems like a winner, but i was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, and/or knew where i could find one for a good price...thnx

[RJ]

but i was wondering if anyone had any suggestions

Well I wouldn't go with zip drive, I'd recommend a nice CD-RW drive for that. Using MRW you can handle a CD-RW the same way that you can handle a zip, and CD-RW can be read in any CD-ROM / DVD-ROM drive built after somewhen in 1997.
Plus the drive and after all the media are less expensive and give you more capacity.

RJ

[HAL9000]

I'll second that... ZIP's just aren't worth the cost anymore. The drives cost more than CDRW drives and for the price of one disk, you can get a ten pack of CDRW's and have change left over.

[taaron23]

rj, i have a cd-rw i picked up the other day and it comes with nero 5. now the drive is a verbatim 52x24x52. (the model no. is "crw-5224a," which is an asus model no. right????)

anyway, this drive, w/ nero and incd should be capable of mrw correct?

[RJ]

Yep, that one is an Asus and yep it supports MRW. A very fast drive you got there, it is better than a zip.

So in order to take advantage of the MRW you need to install InCD. In the properties of InCD make sure that "format as CD-MRW" is checked, and that's it.

Insert an empty CD-RW. First you need to format it, which takes about 40 seconds. Thereafter you can access it the same way that you can access a zip, or a hard drive.
If you want to read the CD-MRW in another system that has no In-CD or another MRW supporting program installed you need to install a reading filter, which can also be obtained from Ahead website (it's called the EasyWriteReader).

Enjoy :)

RJ

[taaron23]

thanks alot!

[taaron23]

another quick ? about cd-rw drives...i've heard that you should use the cd-rw drive for its intended use of data, video, photo, etc storage. and have a cdrom drive for all other uses, so there is less wear-and-tear on the burner. is that correct?

[RJ]

Yep so it's said. Actually I have no experience with this (a friend of mine has only a burner since his CD-ROM died, for about 1 year now), but it should be better to have a separate ROM drive.
So if you now only have the burner and want to get a ROM drive I suggest to go with a DVD-ROM over a CD-ROM as the price difference is very small.

RJ

[taaron23]

thanks again, rj.

[TwoRails]

I've been saying "forget the Zip" for so long now, I was getting use to being the only one... Now I don't feel as lonely! :D

Hi taaron23,

Yes, at one time it was popular to have both a burner and a player. That was mostly due to the cost difference between the two, and also the very high cost of the burners.

Now, burners are not much more than a straight player, so that the "replacement" cost is not hundreds of dollars, but just barely over the cost of a player only.

Also, as DVDs become more popular, you may not even have room for all three! Two hard drives and CD and DVD burner use up all the channels in most mobos without having to go with an expansion card.

HtH

TwoRails

[bailey]

the newer wd 160g harddrives come with a free promise eide pci controler card, got 3 of them now, just put the hard drives on it and all the cd drives on the mother board, works grear

[28884]

I tried the solution you contemplate.
The Zip drive is cheap but the disks are costly.
The drive has a problem with my virus software and every time it scans a zip disk, it leaves it Read Only. I have spent hours trying to reclaim expensive zip disks.

[28884]

I tried the solution you contemplate.
The Zip drive is cheap but the disks are costly.
The drive has a problem with my virus software and every time it scans a zip disk, it leaves it Read Only. I have spent hours trying to reclaim expensive zip disks. I intend to replace it with a R/W CD. Dan

[TwoRails]

Hi 28884,

You might be better served to start a new thread on your particular problem instead of re-opening an old thread.

TwoRails

[stylin19]

I suppose it depends on the needs. My wifes does the company books using QB and she sometimes needs to do them on the laptop at home. She swears by the USB Jump Drive for file transfers.

As far as backups go, i'm partial to hard drives.

[edfair]

There are still occasions where the ZIP drive is the better solution. But if you are not into working on all types of hardware supporting MS operating systems you may not need one.
I have an internal in one machine on the network and carry an external parallel port one with me all the time.
Beats having to install a CD in a customer's machine to load a .cab file. Of course I have to have about 10 disks to hold them all.

[glc]

ed: I carry a Microsolutions Backpack Triple Play burner, this is even better than a Zip for field work.

[edfair]

I'll look into one. Thanks for the heads-up.
My concern would be on the dos, 4mb end of the spectrum. Still have to support them.

[glc]

The DOS parallel port CD driver is no harder on a system than the Iomega guest driver. Only disadvantage is you won't be able to burn from Dos. Triple Play has all 3 interfaces - parallel, USB, and PCMCIA.