WTB: Zip 250 drive?

[krylon]

Maybe a long shot, but would like to test some disks I have lying around. Thanks!

 

[Vaulter98c]

put something in the freebies thread too, lot of guys have that setup with alerts, great place to find old shit, and usually you only have to pay shipping or a few bucks

 

[dogDAbone]

Now that's something I haven't heard about in quite some time.... I remember they were the rage back in the early 80's and it seemed like everyone had at least 1 drive & buttloads of disks, especially at public & college libraries, where alot of engineering and graphics students went to work on their projects & assignments & transfer stuff back & forth....

Hopefully you can find one here, but if not, there's always fleecebay, hehehe, good luck

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Here's one on Ebay for about $30 (not mine)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/115862240897

And a word of warning, there be dragons. Check the inside of the drive to insure the heads are not damaged before you insert your disk. Also, open the dust cover on your disk and manually spin the media around via the spindle to check the edge of the mylar media. If you see any fraying or other damage, DO NOT put the disk in the drive. ZIP drives were notorious for eating disks, or bad disks destroying drives. I've heard horror stories from other techs where karens would go around trying to find a drive to read their bad ZIP disk and ended up destroying thousands of dollars worth of ZIP drives from the bad disk ripping the heads clean out of the drive. ZIP disks spin at something like 3600 rpm.

I remember they were the rage back in the early 80's

You're a decade off. The first ZIP drive was released in 1994. The 250 MB drive was released in 1998, and the final 750 MB iteration was released in 2002. The 250 MB and especially 750 MB drives were not popular, especially the latter. It was introduced well into CD-R era and was considerably more expensive. I've never seen a 750 MB drive in the wild.