Discussion:
Unreadable zip 100 discs - causes continuous clicking
(too old to reply)
Ian Roberts
2004-06-30 09:06:04 UTC
Permalink
Hi

A friend of mine had trouble reading some of her zip 100 discs.

I tried them out on my PC with an external SCSI zip 100. All that happens is
we hear continuous clicking. Some of them come up with a message that the
disc isnt formatted and do I want to format it. All her other discs
read/write OK.

I've never had this problem with my own discs or other peoples discs before.

Can this disc problem be rectified? Most of the discs are very new and had
little use. Would Iomega replace them under waranty?

Could this error be created by a problem with her USB 100 drive?

Thanks for any info.

Ian
Rick
2004-06-30 16:12:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ian Roberts
Hi
A friend of mine had trouble reading some of her zip 100 discs.
I tried them out on my PC with an external SCSI zip 100. All that happens is
we hear continuous clicking. Some of them come up with a message that the
disc isnt formatted and do I want to format it. All her other discs
read/write OK.
I've never had this problem with my own discs or other peoples discs before.
Welcome to Click Death... Head to http://www.grc.com and look for
the section on Zip & Jaz drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Can this disc problem be rectified?
As it is, no. If it's the only disc having a problem and it's
already failed in 2 different drives consider the disk, and any data
it contained, hosed. The only practical option, if you really REALLY
need the data is a professional recovery service. To attempt to save
the disk the only thing you can do is a long format and see if the
format completes.

If this is happening on more than one disk, and you can still access
some of the other problem disks, what does the Iomega software
report for the Disk Life and Format Life? (Right click on the Iomega
drive icon.) If the "Lives" are low the spare sector pool could be
depleted and the repeated clicking is a last ditch attempt to
retract & clean the heads and attempt to write to the disk again.
Post by Ian Roberts
Most of the discs are very new and had
little use. Would Iomega replace them under waranty?
Yes. But only the failed disks.
Post by Ian Roberts
Could this error be created by a problem with her USB 100 drive?
Not if this is the only disk she is having a problem with. But if
this came on rather suddenly, and it's happening on several disks,
the drive itself could be failing and trashing the disks in the
process. grc.com has a freeware program - TIP.EXE to check disk and
drive problems. Offhand I can't recall if it works with USB drives
though. It definitely works with SCSI, parallel and ATAPI IDE
drives.

NB: If this is a physical failure of the drive, and it's causing
surface damage to the disks, you risk trashing any other Zip drive
as well that the "clicked on" disks are put into. There's no easy
way to tell, short of one of the heads falling off (that actually
happens), if the drive is causing physical damage to disks. In most
cases it isn't so extreme that the damage can be spotted with the
naked eye. But for openers scan the edge of the clicked on disks
through the metal slider, looking for rough edges or tears in the
media. The point being, until the problem is sorted out be very wary
putting the problematic disks in other drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Thanks for any info.
Ian
Mike Kingston
2004-06-30 20:09:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rick
Post by Ian Roberts
Hi
A friend of mine had trouble reading some of her zip 100 discs.
I tried them out on my PC with an external SCSI zip 100. All that happens is
we hear continuous clicking. Some of them come up with a message that the
disc isnt formatted and do I want to format it. All her other discs
read/write OK.
I've never had this problem with my own discs or other peoples discs before.
Welcome to Click Death... Head to http://www.grc.com and look for
the section on Zip & Jaz drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Can this disc problem be rectified?
As it is, no. If it's the only disc having a problem and it's
already failed in 2 different drives consider the disk, and any data
it contained, hosed. The only practical option, if you really REALLY
need the data is a professional recovery service. To attempt to save
the disk the only thing you can do is a long format and see if the
format completes.
If this is happening on more than one disk, and you can still access
some of the other problem disks, what does the Iomega software
report for the Disk Life and Format Life? (Right click on the Iomega
drive icon.) If the "Lives" are low the spare sector pool could be
depleted and the repeated clicking is a last ditch attempt to
retract & clean the heads and attempt to write to the disk again.
Post by Ian Roberts
Most of the discs are very new and had
little use. Would Iomega replace them under waranty?
Yes. But only the failed disks.
Post by Ian Roberts
Could this error be created by a problem with her USB 100 drive?
Not if this is the only disk she is having a problem with. But if
this came on rather suddenly, and it's happening on several disks,
the drive itself could be failing and trashing the disks in the
process. grc.com has a freeware program - TIP.EXE to check disk and
drive problems. Offhand I can't recall if it works with USB drives
though. It definitely works with SCSI, parallel and ATAPI IDE
drives.
NB: If this is a physical failure of the drive, and it's causing
surface damage to the disks, you risk trashing any other Zip drive
as well that the "clicked on" disks are put into. There's no easy
way to tell, short of one of the heads falling off (that actually
happens), if the drive is causing physical damage to disks. In most
cases it isn't so extreme that the damage can be spotted with the
naked eye. But for openers scan the edge of the clicked on disks
through the metal slider, looking for rough edges or tears in the
media. The point being, until the problem is sorted out be very wary
putting the problematic disks in other drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Thanks for any info.
Ian
WHS. Forget any Zip 100 disks that have been inserted in the drive since
COD occurred.
Call Iomega and explain. I had drive (and its refurbished replacement,
that was immediately faulty) and disks replaced without much hassle. The
person I spoke with asked to hear the clicking noise and wanted me to
insert a brand new disk to see if that one would run OK. When I said I
had no more good disks, this was accepted and my small stock was
replaced.
--
Michael J Kingston - Researching Family History
News of surname DIGWEED always welcomed
< Remove my initials from the "To:" address field when replying >
Ian Roberts
2004-06-30 21:53:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Rick
Post by Ian Roberts
Hi
A friend of mine had trouble reading some of her zip 100 discs.
I tried them out on my PC with an external SCSI zip 100. All that happens is
we hear continuous clicking. Some of them come up with a message that the
disc isnt formatted and do I want to format it. All her other discs
read/write OK.
I've never had this problem with my own discs or other peoples discs before.
Welcome to Click Death... Head to http://www.grc.com and look for
the section on Zip & Jaz drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Can this disc problem be rectified?
As it is, no. If it's the only disc having a problem and it's
already failed in 2 different drives consider the disk, and any data
it contained, hosed. The only practical option, if you really REALLY
need the data is a professional recovery service. To attempt to save
the disk the only thing you can do is a long format and see if the
format completes.
If this is happening on more than one disk, and you can still access
some of the other problem disks, what does the Iomega software
report for the Disk Life and Format Life? (Right click on the Iomega
drive icon.) If the "Lives" are low the spare sector pool could be
depleted and the repeated clicking is a last ditch attempt to
retract & clean the heads and attempt to write to the disk again.
Post by Ian Roberts
Most of the discs are very new and had
little use. Would Iomega replace them under waranty?
Yes. But only the failed disks.
Post by Ian Roberts
Could this error be created by a problem with her USB 100 drive?
Not if this is the only disk she is having a problem with. But if
this came on rather suddenly, and it's happening on several disks,
the drive itself could be failing and trashing the disks in the
process. grc.com has a freeware program - TIP.EXE to check disk and
drive problems. Offhand I can't recall if it works with USB drives
though. It definitely works with SCSI, parallel and ATAPI IDE
drives.
NB: If this is a physical failure of the drive, and it's causing
surface damage to the disks, you risk trashing any other Zip drive
as well that the "clicked on" disks are put into. There's no easy
way to tell, short of one of the heads falling off (that actually
happens), if the drive is causing physical damage to disks. In most
cases it isn't so extreme that the damage can be spotted with the
naked eye. But for openers scan the edge of the clicked on disks
through the metal slider, looking for rough edges or tears in the
media. The point being, until the problem is sorted out be very wary
putting the problematic disks in other drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Thanks for any info.
Ian
Rick

Thanks for the info and the grc link. Great!

I just hope I havent killed my drive!

Ian
Eric
2004-07-02 06:20:58 UTC
Permalink
Post by Ian Roberts
Rick
Thanks for the info and the grc link. Great!
I just hope I havent killed my drive!
Ian
In addition to the great advice you've already received, you may want to
take a look at my prior post, http://tinyurl.com/39o65.

Eric
Chuck C.
2004-08-08 20:22:08 UTC
Permalink
I too am have some sort of Zip drive problem.. Three computers, two with
100 and one with 250 zip drives.

I followed your advice and downloaded the TIP program from grc.com. IT
indicates many failures on the 250 Zip- Soft,firm and hard.. I tried to
test this same disk in the other computers but when I run TIP.EXE it
indicates " No Iomega Drive " installed [ both computers ]. All three
are running XP Home..I tried running it using Win 98 compatability mode
but did not run this way either..

Does anyone have any notion why this TIP.EXE will run on one sytem and
not the other two??

TIA

Chuck C
Post by Rick
Post by Ian Roberts
Hi
A friend of mine had trouble reading some of her zip 100 discs.
I tried them out on my PC with an external SCSI zip 100. All that happens is
we hear continuous clicking. Some of them come up with a message that the
disc isnt formatted and do I want to format it. All her other discs
read/write OK.
I've never had this problem with my own discs or other peoples discs before.
Welcome to Click Death... Head to http://www.grc.com and look for
the section on Zip & Jaz drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Can this disc problem be rectified?
As it is, no. If it's the only disc having a problem and it's
already failed in 2 different drives consider the disk, and any data
it contained, hosed. The only practical option, if you really REALLY
need the data is a professional recovery service. To attempt to save
the disk the only thing you can do is a long format and see if the
format completes.
If this is happening on more than one disk, and you can still access
some of the other problem disks, what does the Iomega software
report for the Disk Life and Format Life? (Right click on the Iomega
drive icon.) If the "Lives" are low the spare sector pool could be
depleted and the repeated clicking is a last ditch attempt to
retract & clean the heads and attempt to write to the disk again.
Post by Ian Roberts
Most of the discs are very new and had
little use. Would Iomega replace them under waranty?
Yes. But only the failed disks.
Post by Ian Roberts
Could this error be created by a problem with her USB 100 drive?
Not if this is the only disk she is having a problem with. But if
this came on rather suddenly, and it's happening on several disks,
the drive itself could be failing and trashing the disks in the
process. grc.com has a freeware program - TIP.EXE to check disk and
drive problems. Offhand I can't recall if it works with USB drives
though. It definitely works with SCSI, parallel and ATAPI IDE
drives.
NB: If this is a physical failure of the drive, and it's causing
surface damage to the disks, you risk trashing any other Zip drive
as well that the "clicked on" disks are put into. There's no easy
way to tell, short of one of the heads falling off (that actually
happens), if the drive is causing physical damage to disks. In most
cases it isn't so extreme that the damage can be spotted with the
naked eye. But for openers scan the edge of the clicked on disks
through the metal slider, looking for rough edges or tears in the
media. The point being, until the problem is sorted out be very wary
putting the problematic disks in other drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Thanks for any info.
Ian
Chuck
2004-08-08 20:39:24 UTC
Permalink
WELL, I think I found the answer to my own question.. From the Q & A on
grc.com web site:

"This is a very common problem caused by the fact that only Windows 3.1,
Windows 95 and Windows 98 include built-in ASPI drivers. ASPI drivers
are required to "connect" the Iomega ATAPI and SCSI drives to the ASPI
SCSI programming interface used by our utilities."

Since the system where this TIP.EXE functioned properly has a SCSI
controller the ASPI drivers are installed. The other two do not have
SCSI installed.

Does this sound logical??

Chuck C
Post by Chuck C.
I too am have some sort of Zip drive problem.. Three computers, two with
100 and one with 250 zip drives.
I followed your advice and downloaded the TIP program from grc.com. IT
indicates many failures on the 250 Zip- Soft,firm and hard.. I tried to
test this same disk in the other computers but when I run TIP.EXE it
indicates " No Iomega Drive " installed [ both computers ]. All three
are running XP Home..I tried running it using Win 98 compatability mode
but did not run this way either..
Does anyone have any notion why this TIP.EXE will run on one sytem and
not the other two??
TIA
Chuck C
Post by Rick
Post by Ian Roberts
Hi
A friend of mine had trouble reading some of her zip 100 discs.
I tried them out on my PC with an external SCSI zip 100. All that
happens is
Post by Rick
Post by Ian Roberts
we hear continuous clicking. Some of them come up with a message that
the
Post by Rick
Post by Ian Roberts
disc isnt formatted and do I want to format it. All her other discs
read/write OK.
I've never had this problem with my own discs or other peoples discs
before.
Post by Rick
Welcome to Click Death... Head to http://www.grc.com and look for
the section on Zip & Jaz drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Can this disc problem be rectified?
As it is, no. If it's the only disc having a problem and it's
already failed in 2 different drives consider the disk, and any data
it contained, hosed. The only practical option, if you really REALLY
need the data is a professional recovery service. To attempt to save
the disk the only thing you can do is a long format and see if the
format completes.
If this is happening on more than one disk, and you can still access
some of the other problem disks, what does the Iomega software
report for the Disk Life and Format Life? (Right click on the Iomega
drive icon.) If the "Lives" are low the spare sector pool could be
depleted and the repeated clicking is a last ditch attempt to
retract & clean the heads and attempt to write to the disk again.
Post by Ian Roberts
Most of the discs are very new and had
little use. Would Iomega replace them under waranty?
Yes. But only the failed disks.
Post by Ian Roberts
Could this error be created by a problem with her USB 100 drive?
Not if this is the only disk she is having a problem with. But if
this came on rather suddenly, and it's happening on several disks,
the drive itself could be failing and trashing the disks in the
process. grc.com has a freeware program - TIP.EXE to check disk and
drive problems. Offhand I can't recall if it works with USB drives
though. It definitely works with SCSI, parallel and ATAPI IDE
drives.
NB: If this is a physical failure of the drive, and it's causing
surface damage to the disks, you risk trashing any other Zip drive
as well that the "clicked on" disks are put into. There's no easy
way to tell, short of one of the heads falling off (that actually
happens), if the drive is causing physical damage to disks. In most
cases it isn't so extreme that the damage can be spotted with the
naked eye. But for openers scan the edge of the clicked on disks
through the metal slider, looking for rough edges or tears in the
media. The point being, until the problem is sorted out be very wary
putting the problematic disks in other drives.
Post by Ian Roberts
Thanks for any info.
Ian
Gary Smith
2004-08-09 02:58:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Chuck
Since the system where this TIP.EXE functioned properly has a SCSI
controller the ASPI drivers are installed. The other two do not have
SCSI installed.
Does this sound logical??
Yeo, that's exactly it. In order to make TIP run, you need to locate and
install an ASPI driver. There are several possibilities -- Adaptec and
Nero seem the most promising. I'm using the Adaptec ASPI 4.71.2 driver on
my Win2K system.
--
Gary L. Smith ***@yahoo.com
Columbus, Ohio
Richard Tasker
2004-08-10 03:11:28 UTC
Permalink
Use this originally written by Steve at GRC.

<http://www.foxglovedrive.com/utils/aspi_me.zip>

Just unzip and install. I know it works cause I just solved the exact problem today!

Dick Tasker
Post by Gary Smith
Post by Chuck
Since the system where this TIP.EXE functioned properly has a SCSI
controller the ASPI drivers are installed. The other two do not have
SCSI installed.
Does this sound logical??
Yeo, that's exactly it. In order to make TIP run, you need to locate and
install an ASPI driver. There are several possibilities -- Adaptec and
Nero seem the most promising. I'm using the Adaptec ASPI 4.71.2 driver on
my Win2K system.
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