My Zips drives keep dying

I am really starting to hate Zip drives.

Do any of you have problems with Zip drives craping out on you?

Since I've had my MPC2000 I've gone through a few of them. I think I ruined one or two before I knew that you're supposed to turn on the Zip before powering up the MPC. But now that I use it correctly they still don't last as long as I'd like.

Am I the only one with this problem. If so I need to just realize that I'm a meathead or that my MPC is actinig up.

well, unfortunately, i dont even operate my zip drive like that.... i can turn it on before or after the MPC and never have had a problem out of them over the last 6 or 7 years, even my SCSI CD Burner/Player.... got two of them and have never had a problem

4dahaterz wrote:well, unfortunately, i dont even operate my zip drive like that.... i can turn it on before or after the MPC and never have had a problem out of them over the last 6 or 7 years, even my SCSI CD Burner/Player.... got two of them and have never had a problem

Thaks for the reply. What MPC model do you run? How old is it?

Turning the drive off / on when the mpc is on can blow the scsi fuse... If it was blown, no drives would work at all, but maybe, maybe the fuse is 'damaged' and not totally dead causing it to sometimes work and sometimes not? Possible?

Anyway, card readers are the way.

my MPC is at least 8 years old, i have had it since the summer of '98....and it maybe true about it could blow the fuse, but the only thing i have messed up with my MPC after all these years is, The screen is full of lines, going horizontal and vertical now, and also my Right Stereo Main Out doesnt work.... those are my only two problems...

[quote="Steve138"]I am really starting to hate Zip drives.

Do any of you have problems with Zip drives craping out on you?


As a matter of fact I just had one go out on me the other day and I wondered this same question there has got to be a better solution than getting another zip drive that dies and puts you in the same boat again.

i feel your pain. i went thru 4 zip drives.

4dahaterz, did you buy it used in '98 or new?

"Turning the drive off / on when the mpc is on can blow the scsi fuse"

That is not exactly correct. The problem is connecting/disconnecting SCSI devices while the MPC is on.

Yeah, i say at least cause i dont know how long it was sitting in the store

mpc3000 wrote:"Turning the drive off / on when the mpc is on can blow the scsi fuse"

That is not exactly correct. The problem is connecting/disconnecting SCSI devices while the MPC is on.

Didn't know that. I guess now I can stop turning my mpc off whenever I forget to turn the zip drive on beforehand.

|Cheers

Does it turn on @ all?
if not, this is a fuse problem.

If it turns on.

Does it have a clicking sound?
if it does, this is the click of death problem.


Is it a internal or external zip?

If you are going to get another zip....try to get a Zip Plus Drive. They are newer than the original drive and they work with both SCSI and parallel connections.

Do not use your good disk on these bad drives. You will lose the data on them. They are hard to recover. Disk will be ruined also.
Even if you are just checking to see if it works. Use a test disk instead.

Louie lou wrote:Does it turn on @ all?
if not, this is a fuse problem.

If it turns on.

Does it have a clicking sound?
if it does, this is the click of death problem.


Is it a internal or external zip?

If you are going to get another zip....try to get a Zip Plus Drive. They are newer than the original drive and they work with both SCSI and parallel connections.

Do not use your good disk on these bad drives. You will lose the data on them. They are hard to recover. Disk will be ruined also.
Even if you are just checking to see if it works. Use a test disk instead.

The Zip does power up. The MPC powers up too. I have no problem loading the operating system and I have no problem loading sounds from the floppy drive.

When I go to load a file (shift + file) and then select the SCSI drive (#5), that's when it gives me an error message and freezes up. If I just leave it on the floppy port and load files from there...no problem.

I have a hard time believing that it's just a blown fuse because the problem seem to get worse over time. When I first got the MPC, it loaded Zip files fine. then it started giving "SCSI drive not ready" (or something like that) message when I sellected the SCSI drive. The message would only last a second then it would work OK. Then it went througha short period (a week or so) when it would load and save only sometimes. Had a couple times when I got a bunch of stuff loaded, sampled, and had some new beats, and then I couldn't save (I was about to punch something). Now it just doesn't load anyting from the Zip.

When I first got the MPC I didn't know about the rule of not connecting and disconnecting the Zip while the MPC is on. It might have been then when things initially got messed up and it's just been getting worse since then. But usually when a fuse goes, it just goes. It's either working fully or it's not working at all. A fuse doesn't usually fade out over time like that...does it?

If you have a blown SCSI fuse, you may experience various degrees of success. It may seem like it's gonna work, and then give you those annoying "SCSI write error" or SCSI read error" messsages. It may seem to save or load correctly sometimes.

On the MPC2k, if you know for sure the SCSI cable has been connected or disconnected while the power is turned on, the possibilty of the SCSI fuse being blown is pretty high. The MPC2k was not too forgiving like that.

Have you tried using a different cable, or as someone else has already posted on these forums somewhere "Turn everything off, then switch those switches (on the Zip) back and forth a few times. Set it back to ID 5 and Term On and give it another try.

Card Readers do seem to be the best way.

Make sure you have the right cable and that it's connected to the right port.It might sound weird but sometimes it's little things that cause big problems.

2.