lifetime of Zips?

Chris Brooks · Post by **Chris Brooks** » 21 Sep 2004 7:44 am

A colleague told me that Zip discs don't have a particularly long lifetime . . . and that a Zip drive may flake out after "about 900 clicks."

Any experience with Zip discs or drives to corroborate this?

I only back up occasionally on Zip, but I am still interested in this possible problem.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

Mark Ardito · Post by **Mark Ardito** » 21 Sep 2004 9:11 am

Chris,

I used to work at this tiny little company a while ago. I did all of the IT work for them. For the longest time I was backing up all the payroll data on ZIP disks. Then one day I heard this terrible noise coming from the external zip drive. It was clicking really loud. I did some research and found out this is called the COD (Click of Death). Basically it destroys the disks that are put in the drive. Right away I found another way to backup the payroll data and threw away our ZIP drive. I have heard other people talk about this also.

Mark

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Sho~Bud Pro I, Fender D-8 (C6&E13) http://www.darkmagneto.com

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 21 Sep 2004 3:39 pm

Yep, the lifetime of the disks & drive is just up to the point of when you need the data. My neighbor was backing up QuickBooks onto a 100 mB Zipdrive until we learned this lesson the hard way. Now it's CDROM. They used to be good for transferring files between PC's but now you can get a 512 mB USB thumb drive for $60.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ray Minich on 21 September 2004 at 04:41 PM.]</p></FONT>

Chris Brooks · Post by **Chris Brooks** » 22 Sep 2004 5:37 am

Thanks Mark and Ray. Good info.

Ray, by a thumb drive, do you mean those little keychain type storage units like a SanDisk or a PNY Attache? 256 MB?

Is there one you would recommend?

These just plug into a USB port, right? No need to load a driver?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Don Walters · Post by **Don Walters** » 22 Sep 2004 6:46 am

Chris, every device needs a driver, but if you have Windows 2000 or XP it'll auto-detect and you're set. You may need to download a driver for Win 95/98, I'm not sure.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 22 Sep 2004 6:53 am

Yes Chris, they're about the size of a match book. Easy to lose too 'cause I can't find mine right now or else I'd tell ya who made it. Win2K and WinXP should see it without any drivers needed. Just be sure to "unmount the drive" before you disconnect it. (Unmounting is where you tell the PC you wanna disconnect the thing, and the operating system frees the resource.) Check out Tiger Direct or CDW for current offerings.

Chris Brooks · Post by **Chris Brooks** » 23 Sep 2004 4:45 am

Thanks, Ray and Don! Yes, I have a new Dell with XP so as you say it should detect the plug in of the device.

Happy computing . . and steeling.

Chris

Gere Mullican · Post by **Gere Mullican** » 23 Sep 2004 9:30 am

I have a 100MB Zip drive in my oldder computer (5 years old) that still works just fine. I did hear the COD once and ran a free program that somehow fixed it. I haven't used it in a while since I got a CD and DVD burner. Just transferred all the stuff from the zips to the CDs. I also now use a 256 MB Lexar Jump drive. These things are really neat. Just plug it in your USP port and start trucking. VERY IMPORTANT!! don't forget your password or you will have to reformat it and lose all your date. You can also set up 2 different areas for PUBLIC and SECURE so you can hide things from prying eyes.
Gere