What kind of floppy disks does a zip drive for a 2000xl need

And where do you guys buy yours from? I've asked this question before and got locked for some reason, if i'm writing this on the wrong topic please just tell me and i'll write it somewhere else.

floppy drive = floppy discs

zip drive = zip discs

if you have a zip drive you just have to find if it takes 100 or 250 zip discs. Don't try to jam floppy discs into the zip drive!

yabyum wrote:Don't try to jam floppy discs into the zip drive!

But if you do, please post photos!

Haha now I get it. Thanks guys.

And as many people will tell you, bin the unreliable POS Zip, use a memory card reader instead.

I am curious to what most people use around here. I have zips and floppys but I am thinking of getting a cf card. What is everyone else using?

dccarson wrote:I am curious to what most people use around here. I have zips and floppys but I am thinking of getting a cf card. What is everyone else using?

solid state memory card - either compact flash or sd (i use both). i think cf is most popular / cheapest / most compatible.
zips are a one-way ticket to lost data.
search 'click of death' and find many people accidentally finding out about it.

the extra money you spend on a good cardreader from a vendor like mpc stuff is worth it.

tapedeck wrote:the extra money you spend on a good cardreader from a vendor like mpc stuff is worth it.

Only difference I see in buying from a vendor, rather than direct from the manufacturer, might be the addition of screw/mounting holes, an IDE cable, and a replacement power cable.

You can probably DIY it cheaper, price difference may or may not be worth the hassle of DIY.

Thanks tapedeck. I havent had a zip fail on me yet and I normally back up like crazy. Ive been putting my drumkits on a floppy, zip, hard drive and even on a thumb drive. But I think next month I will spring for a cf drive for my MPC3000 with the 2k sometime after that. I think I read somewhere that an 2k card reader can use up to 16gb CF card. Or maybe thats for the 2KXL. Anybody know of hand?

Yes, at least 16GB, maybe more (possibly can format up to 26GB, 26 x 1GB max per partition?).

But, if your chosen card reader is an IDE/ATAPI card reader, and you are using OS 1.20 (by choice, or because card reader requires it to operate), then you are restricted to formatting cards with a single 1GB maximum PC compatible parition.

It will still work with multi-MPC-paritioned cards, you just won't be able to format them that way on an IDE/ATAPI card reader, but can on a SCSI card reader.

The earlier OS that you might use, OS 1.14, does not have this 1GB max PC partition IDE/ATAPI formatting restriction, but might not work with your chosen card reader.

I fired up an old zip100 today and formatted a disk on the MPC60, just to see if the thing still worked. I'm never going to use it but had to test it before selling it to some cheap, ill-informed sucker on eBay. Don't ever buy a Zip drive to save your work, it's like a blue egg timer of impending data loss.

Well the MPC I bought has one installed lol and I don't have any money to get a CF reader or whatever else there is. I guess I just have to cope with it for now.

It will be fine as long as you are backing up important work, and if a Zip disk has problems, trouble accessing the data, repeated clicking noises from Zip drive, etc., do not put the backup Zip disk anywhere near that drive, find a different, operating Zip drive, before trying to access the backups.

Thanks alot for the tips! It's also kind of a hassle to keep on buying 3 zipdisks at a time on ebay for 10 dollars, anybody know any specific sites or people who sell alot more at a time?