Can you use a zip drive as a disk drive?

[picarda2]

Can you use a zip drive as a disk drive?
I was wondering if a zip drive could do everything a floppy drive did. Including working in dos and all that crap.(setting up hard drives...)Never owned a zip drive and never worked with one. I was wondering if I could buy a zip drive instead of a floppy drive.

 

[Eug]

Yes, you can even boot of an IDE zip drive with some motherboards. I find the floppy's fairly useless in a lot of situations because many of the files I work with are several Mb. Plus, floppy's are soooooo damn slow.

However, many people don't have zip drives. I almost never use a floppy at work and at home, but that's because I've installed one on my work computer. Only one other computer in the dept. has one, but it's not the 250 Mb version I like.

I suggest you get both, esp. since the floppy only costs $15.

I'm sure somebody's gonna tell you to get a CD-R/CD-RW. However, that's not a great solution, because they're much more of a hassle than a zip.

I have a floppy, Zip 250, and CD-RW. They all serve their purposes, and I would never give up any of them.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Until CDR(W) or something else can mimick the simplicity of a floppy, Zip is the way to go.

-SUO

 

[picarda2]

Thx for the answers guys. I'll buy all three of them(floppy, zip, and cdrw) in my new system then... I appreciate the help.

 

[ButtMunch]

Yeah I got a Zip and it works like a floppy.
But I rather have one of those 120mb Super diskdrives.

 

[Mday]

i am still contemplating going zip too, since my school uses them. otherwise superdisk all the way.

 

[Eug]

Superdisk seems OK, but unfortunately nobody uses them. I do some powerpoint stuff and basically every place I go to for printing (onto kodachromes) has a zip drive. Most do not have superdisk.

 

[corkyg]

Zips are OK, but can only read Zip disks . . . not regular floppies.

Every system I have built in the past two years have internal LS-120 drives which can do everything a Zip does and then some. Even my laptop has a LS-120 in place of a regular floppy.

Zip got there first with the hype and ergo got the market share . . . but IMHO SuperDisks are better.

If you are in a multi-user environment, then of course, compatibility with other users is an issue. If not . . . go LS-120 and don't worry about Zip users.

 

[Celoverclock]

"Until CDR(W) or something else can mimick the simplicity of a floppy, Zip is the way to go."

they have for a while..ever heard of directCD by adaptec???

drag and drop.

250 mb zip?heh..thats like running a 20 mb harddrive..you need 700mb cd-r's, burnt in less than 5 minutes. and remember, as easy as drag and drop

 

[Eug]

I have a CD-RW, and I have Direct CD.

DirectCD can be useless if you plan to take your discs to someone else's computer. It's especially bad for me since Macs don't understand the wonky DirectCD at all, and most photo centres I take my powerpoint stuff to use Macs.

A zip disk is MUCH simpler.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Celoverclock, as you appear to be fairly new to the boards, I'll excuse you.

Yes, I have heard of and even used DirectCD. You cannot tell me that DirectCD is as simple as using the standard Windows Explorer with drag & drop capabilities. And as someone else pointed out, the "universality" of DirectCD discs leave much to be desired.

Until ALL computer users get to our level ... or CD recording becomes much easier, Zips will be better for most users.

-SUO