Downloading to iomega 250 zip drive

[chscag]

Must admit that I'm also wondering why, if the drive has been used with a Mac already, that it would be formatted NTFS?

Because there are two Iomega zip drives involved. The one he used on his older Mac was a SCSI drive, however, the newer drive is USB as he indicated. An Iomega Zip drive (USB) is either formatted to FAT-32 or NTFS, and since the drive is 250 GB it can not be formatted to FAT-32. It has to be NTFS because of its size.

 

[pm-r]

Hmmm… excuse me, but I think something's amiss here.

I'm assuming and gather that TWO Zip drives are involved, but only ONE disk to be shared between the two different drives connected to TWO different Macs.

If that disk is formatted so that both Macs can read and write to that disk, problem is solved.

But some erroneous things keep getting mentioned and one is the size. The normal zip disks came in 100MB and 250MB sizes. A Zip 250GB keeps getting mentioned erroneously, and AFAIK, there is no such thing. And the quoted sizes could make a difference as to formatting.

The Zip 250 disk in question is probably a Zip 250 MB disk which the OP could confirm, not 250GB!!

 

[EricSignGuy]

I use 250 MB Zip discs and drives.
Ancient MAC can read and write to the discs with it's own Zip drive thru it's scsi port. I originally used that for backup.
I ran a Power PC for years with a USB Zip drive which it would read and write and enabled me to communicate with ancient MAC with no problem.
I'm now running El Capitan, it reads the zip discs ok with the USB zip drive but will not write on them and that's what I really need to do.
I'm hoping this Paragon program will work, having trouble getting the trial running because it's asking for a serial number, thus my contacting their support people in Germany, and I understand they take their weekends more seriously than I do.

 

[chscag]

A quick look up at the Iomega site and at Amazon.com shows that Patrick is correct. Now I am totally confused as to why the OP can not read from a 250 MB zip drive that is obviously either formatted to FAT or FAT-32? Unless he has an Iomega Jaz drive but even so, they're only 1 GB or 2 GB.

I give up!

 

[chscag]

I'm hoping this Paragon program will work, having trouble getting the trial running because it's asking for a serial number, thus my contacting their support people in Germany, and I understand they take their weekends more seriously than I do.

Now that I know your zip drive is 250MB (not GB), I doubt that the Paragon Software will be of any use to you unless for some crazy reason the drive was formatted differently. (which I now doubt) Check the disk closely, to make sure the disk is not write protected. I seem to remember that the zip disks could be write protected by sliding a small latch on the side.

 

[EricSignGuy]

The Zip drive says it's formatted MAC OS Standard

 

[chscag]

The Zip drive says it's formatted MAC OS Standard

OK, no reason then why you can't write to it except: 1. The disk is write protected or, 2. It's damaged.

 

[EricSignGuy]

I have about a dozen discs, I can read them, when I try to drag a file onto them, It goes back to where it came from and does not show up on the zip drive disc. None are write protected. I guess I'll have to buy an old Power PC to use as an intermediate device to copy from thumb drive to zip drive. A clumsy solution.

 

[pm-r]

OK, no reason then why you can't write to it except: 1. The disk is write protected or, 2. It's damaged.

For 1. Then it couldn't be written to with the old Mac

For 2. Same

But How about:
- the USB drive is goofed up for writing to disk
- El Capitan is stupid or broken in its ability to write to the disk.

Eric, do you have or access to another recent Mac running 10.8.x to 10.9.x that you could use and try writing to the zip disk with the Zip drive connected to that Mac?

I'm suspecting El Capitan may be the offending villain for some unfounded reason. And I'd suggest you'll be stuck for a solution until some other testing is done like the suggestions above to maybe narrow down the problem. And just forget the Paragon stuff as chscag also suggests.

 

[pm-r]

I have about a dozen discs, I can read them, when I try to drag a file onto them, It goes back to where it came from and does not show up on the zip drive disc. None are write protected. I guess I'll have to buy an old Power PC to use as an intermediate device to copy from thumb drive to zip drive. A clumsy solution.

Eric, I'm guessing that you could possibly manage with an Intel Mac and if PPC mode is needed, then OS X up to SL 10.6.8 with Rosetta installed should do what you need.




- Patrick
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[EricSignGuy]

I tried it with an earlier 2011 Mac 10.6.8, no cigar, I'm guessing the problem is with Intel Macs.
Hey, guys, thanks for trying to help, I appreciate it. I'll just get an older Mac on ebay.

 

[pm-r]

I'm just wondering if one also needs any of the Iomega/Zip software installed as well as a compatible Mac, and the "IomegaWare" name or some such comes to mind.

I have an old Iomega drive in the basement but I don't know if it is a jazz or zip that was probably last used with my G3 DT Power Mac many years ago, but never relied upon it as I never really trusted the Iomega stuff for some reason, but was forced to use it.

Good luck with your search and buying. But I think there are some here wondering if there isn't a better solution you could use.



- Patrick
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[EricSignGuy]

Thanks again for trying, I also was hoping there was some third party support I could just purchase and run. Anyway, I just bought a G3 for $65, so that becomes the intermediate machine, kinda like changing Michelins for wagon wheels, oh well.