A zip drive is great for backups but make sure that Zip disk works fully!
I would suggest getting iomega's tools and check that disk over.
Back in 1997 or so, we had a large solar flare in the summer that ruined all but 3 of my zip disks. And yes, solar flares can do that!
I ended up throwing out the old disks with data because the way zip disks are made, the track is written magnetically to the disk in a spiraling way that if ANY part of that gets wiped, you get the "Click of death" which is where the zip drive can't find the soft track on the disk. Once that happens, the only way to get it working is to send the disk back to the factory (not likely) or just suck it up and throw it out (likely)
What would be a totally awesome even BETTER way to backup, is to grab either an external Jaz drive or an internal Jaz drive connected to external case, and use that for backup. Mmmm... 1GB or 2GB external HDDs that are removable
I actually have used 1GB and 2GB Jaz disks to boot a PC and mac as a utility thing. Allows me to store my tools and such on it and run Windows 2k and have a fully functioning system to work from. These days, I use DVD-RAM/RW and USB Flash drives to do that.
I would suggest getting iomega's tools and check that disk over.
Back in 1997 or so, we had a large solar flare in the summer that ruined all but 3 of my zip disks. And yes, solar flares can do that!
I ended up throwing out the old disks with data because the way zip disks are made, the track is written magnetically to the disk in a spiraling way that if ANY part of that gets wiped, you get the "Click of death" which is where the zip drive can't find the soft track on the disk. Once that happens, the only way to get it working is to send the disk back to the factory (not likely) or just suck it up and throw it out (likely)
What would be a totally awesome even BETTER way to backup, is to grab either an external Jaz drive or an internal Jaz drive connected to external case, and use that for backup. Mmmm... 1GB or 2GB external HDDs that are removable
I actually have used 1GB and 2GB Jaz disks to boot a PC and mac as a utility thing. Allows me to store my tools and such on it and run Windows 2k and have a fully functioning system to work from. These days, I use DVD-RAM/RW and USB Flash drives to do that.