Iomega Jaz 2GB problems out the wazzoo

[zippy]

A client of mine wants data backed up off of a few Jaz 2GB disks. One problem...it's not working.

I tried his two Jaz drives to no avail on his computer. He bought another one and I took it home to try on my computer and I was able to back up all but a few files from one of the disks (a few files wouldn't copy...weird error - I don't even remember any more). However, now the drive is doing what the other two drives did.

I put in a disk, it spins up, the orange light blinks a few times, then the orange light stays on. I cannot access the disks and when I try to it freezes 'My Computer' and I have to do End Task and then my computer is alright again.

On another note, the f'ing Jaz Traveler isn't working so I can't use it via the parallel port. It's missing a driver for the device IMG VP0 and I can't find anything related to that or even any drivers related to the Jaz Traveler on Iomega's site.

If anyone has any ideas...let me know...I've already spent a tremendous amount of time working on this and I have backed up 1 of 6 disks. BTW, I think he only put about 100MB or less on each disk...what a waste.

Anyway, thanks.

 

[GT1999]

This sounds very similar to the ZIP problems I heard about in the past. Basically, once there was a bad cart, it would continue to ruin drives. I don't know if there's a fix for this or not. Hopefully someone else reading this knows what I'm talking about and has some sort of resolution. Sorry I couldn't help further.

 

[zippy]

Originally posted by: Geekish Thoughts
This sounds very similar to the ZIP problems I heard about in the past. Basically, once there was a bad cart, it would continue to ruin drives. I don't know if there's a fix for this or not. Hopefully someone else reading this knows what I'm talking about and has some sort of resolution. Sorry I couldn't help further.

That's all that I have come up with.

At this point I'm cutting my losses and theirs. Charging them for the drive, charging them for the time required to back up the stuff from the first disk, and then I'm offering to get a quote from a data recovery service for them (friend is a reseller through them so there is a slight discount for them and a slight comission for him). It's disappointing that I wasn't able to back this stuff up - they're really great people and they even wrote a college recommendation for me (I've done a lot of other computer work for them in the past). Oh well, gotta know when to call it quits.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Geekish Thoughts
This sounds very similar to the ZIP problems I heard about in the past. Basically, once there was a bad cart, it would continue to ruin drives. I don't know if there's a fix for this or not. Hopefully someone else reading this knows what I'm talking about and has some sort of resolution. Sorry I couldn't help further.

No, it's the other way around. A drive goes bad, and it ruins the cartridges. Luckily, I've never had it happen with my Zip drives, but when it does happen, it sucks. Royally. :|

 

[zippy]

Originally posted by: jliechty

Originally posted by: Geekish Thoughts
This sounds very similar to the ZIP problems I heard about in the past. Basically, once there was a bad cart, it would continue to ruin drives. I don't know if there's a fix for this or not. Hopefully someone else reading this knows what I'm talking about and has some sort of resolution. Sorry I couldn't help further.

No, it's the other way around. A drive goes bad, and it ruins the cartridges. Luckily, I've never had it happen with my Zip drives, but when it does happen, it sucks. Royally. :|

Well, if that is the case then my client got shafted tremendously with 3 Jaz drives...
Though the new one that I got them worked for a short time...then I tried a different disk and it was over.

Gah, what a POS. Iomega makes such horrible products. How do they manage to fvck everything up. Click of death for Zip disks...it's an embarassment to the first three letters of my username.

Another client had what he thought was a dead Zip 250 drive and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it to work on his computer or mine. Finally I dug through their web site and did the stupid troubleshooting utility that they have on the site...they didn't f'ing put a required driver on the driver CD or on the download page for the drive as it turned out! I got a link through that troubleshooting utility and all was well. What a waste of time (mine and client's) and money (client's)! :Q :|

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: zippy

Originally posted by: jliechty

Originally posted by: Geekish Thoughts
This sounds very similar to the ZIP problems I heard about in the past. Basically, once there was a bad cart, it would continue to ruin drives. I don't know if there's a fix for this or not. Hopefully someone else reading this knows what I'm talking about and has some sort of resolution. Sorry I couldn't help further.

No, it's the other way around. A drive goes bad, and it ruins the cartridges. Luckily, I've never had it happen with my Zip drives, but when it does happen, it sucks. Royally. :|

Well, if that is the case then my client got shafted tremendously with 3 Jaz drives...
Though the new one that I got them worked for a short time...then I tried a different disk and it was over.

Gah, what a POS. Iomega makes such horrible products. How do they manage to fvck everything up. Click of death for Zip disks...it's an embarassment to the first three letters of my username.

Another client had what he thought was a dead Zip 250 drive and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it to work on his computer or mine. Finally I dug through their web site and did the stupid troubleshooting utility that they have on the site...they didn't f'ing put a required driver on the driver CD or on the download page for the drive as it turned out! I got a link through that troubleshooting utility and all was well. What a waste of time (mine and client's) and money (client's)! :Q :|

This is why I'm moving over to CD-Rs (when the data needs to be permanent), or CompactFlash (for quick transfers). CD-RWs have been less reliable for me than my Zip drives, so I don't touch them.

 

[CQuinn]

Before you get too far into a rant against Iomega, you might try contacting them for support on the
disks.

I don't know if they still do this... but a while back I had a damaged Jaz disk that I wanted to get the
data back from. At that time Iomega offered their own form of Data recovery service where
you sent them your cartridge and they would copy the data onto a good disk and send it back to
you. You only had to pay the replacement cost for a new cartridge.

AFAIK, Jaz drives were not susceptible to the problems that had plagued Zip drives and cartridges.
(they came with a different set of problems). Did you try reading the disk in a different Jaz2 drive,
or just moving the drive to a different computer?

 

[zippy]

Originally posted by: CQuinn
Before you get too far into a rant against Iomega, you might try contacting them for support on the
disks.

I don't know if they still do this... but a while back I had a damaged Jaz disk that I wanted to get the
data back from. At that time Iomega offered their own form of Data recovery service where
you sent them your cartridge and they would copy the data onto a good disk and send it back to
you. You only had to pay the replacement cost for a new cartridge.

AFAIK, Jaz drives were not susceptible to the problems that had plagued Zip drives and cartridges.
(they came with a different set of problems). Did you try reading the disk in a different Jaz2 drive,
or just moving the drive to a different computer?

Perhaps I'll contact Iomega and see if they will do the data recovery first - thanks.

I have tried 3 Jaz 2GB drives and 2 computers - no luck with any combo.