Cheapest solution for reading a 100MB Zip disk one time?

[Sky-Knight]

Do you mean newer than XP?

Yeah, Windows 7 and onward started using separated privilege in the drivers, which prevents the proprietary controls required to control the device in question, at least over LPT ports.

You might be able to get that mess to work under Linux... but that's got its own headaches.

 

[Philippe]

Btw "USB to 25 pin/parallel" adapters are not real LPT ports. They just work for some parallel printers...

 

[Sky-Knight]

Btw "USB to 25 pin/parallel" adapters are not real LPT ports. They just work for some parallel printers...

The same is true of most USB serial interfaces, it's really hard to find one that meets the RS232 or RS485 spec.

 

[timeshifter]

So if I come across a machine with XP or 2000 and a real parallel port I suppose I could just use the driver found on this page?

Iomega Zip 100/250/750 Drivers (scsi/parallel/usb/ide) | Device Drivers

Iomega Zip drives were the choice for expanded external storage in the 90’s and early 2000 because alternatives were 1.44MB floppy disks that were becoming a problem due to the nature of files and multimedia need much more space. CD writers were available at the time but were slow and...

oemdrivers.com

 

[Blues]

Would a PCIe Parallel port card work? I can see such cards and they aren't expensive at this point it is an academic interest in how to make old tech work in new environments.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Would a PCIe Parallel port card work? I can see such cards and they aren't expensive at this point it is an academic interest in how to make old tech work in new environments.

As a parallel port yes. To talk to that ZIP drive probably not. Because ZIP expects to take direct control of the port and there are no modern chipset drivers written to interface with the ZIP. Direct access to the port was isolated long ago. It's one of the reasons why ZIP had to move to USB.

 

[Blues]

As a parallel port yes. To talk to that ZIP drive probably not. Because ZIP expects to take direct control of the port and there are no modern chipset drivers written to interface with the ZIP. Direct access to the port was isolated long ago. It's one of the reasons why ZIP had to move to USB.

I figured it wouldn't be all cards and likely the cheapest would be most likely to not support functions.

 

[nlinecomputers]

I figured it wouldn't be all cards and likely the cheapest would be most likely to not support functions.

It'll because PC architecture has changed over the years. No ISA ports in PCs anymore.

 

[Blues]

Like many these details get forgotten because when do I need to know that these days and man I remember some ISA issues way back in the days of WIn 3.1 and Win 95 they stopped being much an issue by late Win 95 early Win 98 for me but I was also just a teen trying to do things with our home PC back then.

 

[mikeroq]

Do you mean newer than XP?

Same difference. Vista and up are "younger" than XP.

Man I haven't touched a zip drive in ages. We have a few laying around at my old job.

 

[Philippe]

As a parallel port yes. To talk to that ZIP drive probably not. Because ZIP expects to take direct control of the port and there are no modern chipset drivers written to interface with the ZIP. Direct access to the port was isolated long ago. It's one of the reasons why ZIP had to move to USB.

I'm currently using Laplink 3 between XP (core2 era) & MS-DOS machines (files transfer over LPT). Works fine.
I'm pretty sure the parallel zip (with a real LPT port / PCIe) will work... Try it and let us know