Tech / Special Interest → Electronics > Old parallel zip disk to USB?

Old parallel zip disk to USB?

Hey,

Just found my old Zip 100mb and five or six disks. Before disposing of it, I want to see if there is anything on the disks. But of course I haven't had a computer with a parallel port in years. Anyone know if these things will work with a parallel to USB adapter that they sell for printers?

Probably not as the driver probably talked directly to the I/O ports.

Besides, I bet the last driver they had was for Win95

I had a SCSI verision and it would lock up with any moder SCI controller.
--
Scott Henion

Embedded Systems Consultant,
SHDesigns home - DIY Welder

Kind of what I thought. I guess that I'll just toss it and destroy the disks. Oh well. If I didn't need what's on there by now, I doubt that I'll ever need it. Thanks.

I've tried several things, none worked. The only thing that worked for me was taking an old PC that had win xp on it. Then I was able to access the zip drives, then save that onto a thumb drive.

There are some interesting mods you can do to a zip drive however.

»computer-hardware.wonderhowto.co···-254124/
--
Is a person a failure for doing nothing? Or is he a failure for trying, and not succeeding at what he is attempting to do? What did you fail at today?.

If it matters I've got a IDE... oops I mean PATA ZIP 250 drive.. Darn I hate it when they change the names...

You can get a PCI parallel port card from eBay for around $5, and probably for less from craigslist.

Parallel port ZIP drives won't work through USB to parallel port dongles for complex reasons. They won't work through PCI parallel ports either if operating system is XP/Vista/Windows7/8.

However, PCI parallel port card on older Linux kernel will work. There are two versions of the drives - earliest ones used ppa, later models used imm kernel modules.

Linux ppa driver (oldest Zip100 drives):

  ppa: Version 1.42
  ppa: Probing port 03bc
  ppa: Probing port 0378
  ppa:     SPP port present
  ppa:     EPP 1.9 with hardware direction protocol
  ppa: Found device at ID 6, Attempting to use EPP 32 bit
  ppa: Communication established with ID 6 using EPP 32 bit
  ppa: Probing port 0278
  ppa:     SPP port present
  scsi0 : Iomega parport ZIP drive
  scsi : 1 host.
    Vendor: IOMEGA    Model: ZIP 100           Rev: D.09
    Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
  Detected scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
  SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 196608 [96 MB] [0.1 GB]
 

imm: Version 0.18
imm: Probing port 03bc
imm: Probing port 0378
imm:     SPP port present
imm:     ECP with a 16 byte FIFO present
imm:     PS/2 bidirectional port present
imm:     Passed Intel bug check.
imm: Probing port 0278
scsi0 : Iomega ZIP Plus drive
scsi : 1 host.
  Vendor: IOMEGA    Model: ZIP 100 PLUS      Rev: J.66
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Detected scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 196608 [96 MB] [0.1 GB]
 

They did make some USB Zip drives. I still keep a USB Zip 100 and a USB Zip 250 drive around just in case. Maybe you could find one of those on the cheap.

Something else you may want to consider if you can't find live ZIP drive is to contact a recovery service to read the disks. Have no idea what they charge but it may be worth not having to hassle with setting up an old machine.

Just for fun did an eBay search for USB ZIP drive and got lots of hits. Probably not a HOT item so going for short money.

»www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=···from=R40

/tom

Can a Zip 250 read the 100 media?

Yes it can.