Discussion:
Disk ejects
(too old to reply)
Tim Barker
2003-09-22 00:49:41 UTC
Permalink
Hi.
I have been asked to get some data off two 100mb zip disks. Both eject when
loaded into the drive. After first trying this with the drive which was
given to me to do the job, I presumed it was a drive failure. So I bought a
new drive. It is still doing the same thing. Grrrrrr .. I don't have any
other disks, but figure it is a bit odd that both disks are doing the same
thing. The new drive is installed into a p4 2.4Ghz, Win XP pro. It shows up
all OK in explorer and seems to be properly installed, but no joy with the
damn disks.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Tim
Rob S
2003-09-22 12:20:10 UTC
Permalink
I'm sure you'll get lots more replies about this, but are you sure it's not a
250Mb disk? That won't read on a 100Mb drive....

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 00:49:41 GMT, "Tim Barker" <***@bigpond.net.au> wrote:

-Hi.
- I have been asked to get some data off two 100mb zip disks. Both eject when
-loaded into the drive. After first trying this with the drive which was
-given to me to do the job, I presumed it was a drive failure. So I bought a
-new drive. It is still doing the same thing. Grrrrrr .. I don't have any
-other disks, but figure it is a bit odd that both disks are doing the same
-thing. The new drive is installed into a p4 2.4Ghz, Win XP pro. It shows up
-all OK in explorer and seems to be properly installed, but no joy with the
-damn disks.
-
-Any help would be appreciated.
-
-Cheers
-
-Tim
-

-Rob
robatwork at mail dot com
D***@ix.netcom.com
2003-09-23 00:50:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Tim Barker
I have been asked to get some data off two 100mb zip disks. Both eject when
loaded into the drive. After first trying this with the drive which was
given to me to do the job, I presumed it was a drive failure. So I bought a
new drive. It is still doing the same thing.
What kind of drives are these? 100MB, 250MB, 750MB? Parallel, USB,
SCSI, IDE/ATAPI, Firewire?
Post by Tim Barker
Grrrrrr .. I don't have any
other disks, but figure it is a bit odd that both disks are doing the same
thing. The new drive is installed into a p4 2.4Ghz, Win XP pro. It shows up
all OK in explorer and seems to be properly installed, but no joy with the
damn disks.
Any help would be appreciated.
100MB Zip disks should have a little reflector in the corner on the
bottom of the disk. Are those intact and unobstructed?
Tim Barker
2003-09-23 10:55:04 UTC
Permalink
The disks are both 100Mb disks. The drive is a 250Mb atapi IDE. I set it up
as a slave on the secondary IDE port, after the cd rom. There is a
reflector, sort of semi circular in shape, slightly depressed into the case.
Seems to be shiny and clear.

Cheers,

Tim.
Post by Tim Barker
Hi.
I have been asked to get some data off two 100mb zip disks. Both eject when
loaded into the drive. After first trying this with the drive which was
given to me to do the job, I presumed it was a drive failure. So I bought a
new drive. It is still doing the same thing. Grrrrrr .. I don't have any
other disks, but figure it is a bit odd that both disks are doing the same
thing. The new drive is installed into a p4 2.4Ghz, Win XP pro. It shows up
all OK in explorer and seems to be properly installed, but no joy with the
damn disks.
Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers
Tim
D***@ix.netcom.com
2003-09-23 11:11:26 UTC
Permalink
Post by Tim Barker
The disks are both 100Mb disks. The drive is a 250Mb atapi IDE. I set it up
as a slave on the secondary IDE port, after the cd rom. There is a
reflector, sort of semi circular in shape, slightly depressed into the case.
Seems to be shiny and clear.
Having a Zip drive slaved to a CD drive has been known to cause
problems on occasion (some CD drives don't support a slave drive
properly). For troubleshooting purposes, it would probably be best to
make the Zip master and the CD drive slave.

The 250MB drives have two sensors to detect whether a Zip disk has
been inserted and what kind of disk it is. The 100MB disks have those
reflectors, and I've read that 250MB disks have some sort of
phosphorescent strip in a different location. I have heard of these
sensors going bad (particularly on the 250MB drives), and when that
happens, the type of disk that sensor was meant to detect will be
ejected upon insertion. However, since you've tried 2 different
drives, that seems unlikely to be the problem.

In your system BIOS setup, make sure the Zip drive's location is set
to "None" or "Not Installed" (rather than "Auto"). If there is a
Zip-specific setting, you could try that too. I've never heard of
incorrect BIOS settings causing an ejection problem like you describe,
but I can't think of anything else to suggest.
Rick
2003-09-23 14:49:39 UTC
Permalink
Post by Tim Barker
The disks are both 100Mb disks. The drive is a 250Mb atapi IDE. I set it up
as a slave on the secondary IDE port, after the cd rom. There is a
reflector, sort of semi circular in shape, slightly depressed into the case.
Seems to be shiny and clear.
Cheers,
Tim.
That sounds like a Nomai labeled disk - if the media sensor area on the
disk is metal and curved vs. flat, plastic and clear. If it is they
cannot be read in anything but a 100 drive. And possibly not even in the
USB 100 drives either. Iomega modified the media sensors in the drives
to reject these disks at the time they sued Nomai for patent
infringement.
Tim Barker
2003-09-24 07:22:37 UTC
Permalink
Yep, dead right .. they are Nomai disks .. Grrrr Now what!

Cheers,

Tim
Post by Rick
Post by Tim Barker
The disks are both 100Mb disks. The drive is a 250Mb atapi IDE. I set it up
as a slave on the secondary IDE port, after the cd rom. There is a
reflector, sort of semi circular in shape, slightly depressed into the case.
Seems to be shiny and clear.
Cheers,
Tim.
That sounds like a Nomai labeled disk - if the media sensor area on the
disk is metal and curved vs. flat, plastic and clear. If it is they
cannot be read in anything but a 100 drive. And possibly not even in the
USB 100 drives either. Iomega modified the media sensors in the drives
to reject these disks at the time they sued Nomai for patent
infringement.
Rick
2003-09-24 17:33:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Tim Barker
Yep, dead right .. they are Nomai disks .. Grrrr Now what!
Cheers,
Tim
Only option is to locate an old 100 drive - parallel, SCSI or IDE - in
that order of preference to be sure you locate a drive that won't reject
the disks. This goes way back so I don't know at what point in
production Iomega modified the drives to reject these disks. 100
parallel & SCSI drives - first out of production/discontinued by Iomega
would be the safest bet. I had Nomai disks and my old 100 parallel drive
accepted them. No 250 or 750 drive will accept the disks.

In retrospect Iomega's modification of the media sensor was kind of
ironic because the end result of the law suit against Nomai was Iomega
buying out, and closing, that division of the product line which
produced the Nomai Zip disks. The Nomai name still exists as a
trademark. But post lawsuit/buyout no more disks were produced under the
Nomai label.

Rick
Post by Tim Barker
Post by Rick
Post by Tim Barker
The disks are both 100Mb disks. The drive is a 250Mb atapi IDE. I set it
up
Post by Rick
Post by Tim Barker
as a slave on the secondary IDE port, after the cd rom. There is a
reflector, sort of semi circular in shape, slightly depressed into the
case.
Post by Rick
Post by Tim Barker
Seems to be shiny and clear.
Cheers,
Tim.
That sounds like a Nomai labeled disk - if the media sensor area on the
disk is metal and curved vs. flat, plastic and clear. If it is they
cannot be read in anything but a 100 drive. And possibly not even in the
USB 100 drives either. Iomega modified the media sensors in the drives
to reject these disks at the time they sued Nomai for patent
infringement.
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