I'm trying to help a local charity retrieve some archived data from some
zip disks that were used on a Risc PC.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have a
zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

These are 100MB zip disks.

Many thanks,
Rob.

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Re: ZIP Drive
By: Rob Heaton to All on Sun May 12 2024 15:23:59

Hi, Rob.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have a
zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

I have a working zip drive, I don't really want to sell it but could be persuaded to lend it out - whereabouts in the country are you?

Alternatively, if the contents are not sensitive, you could send the zip disks across and I could either try to image them or take my drive to my friend's RPC and copy the files off...

Thanks,

BobW

Rob Heaton <nosp@m.please> wrote:

I'm trying to help a local charity retrieve some archived data from some
zip disks that were used on a Risc PC.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have a
zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

These are 100MB zip disks.

For the record, Zip drives are fragile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death
https://kb.iu.edu/d/ahhd

This can destroy drives, discs and the data on them.

If the data is important I'd proceed carefully: I would thoroughly test whatever drive you have on non-important discs before trying the important ones.

If the data has value then it may be worth contacting a professional
recovery outfit; the actual data density isn't that high so it may not be
too difficult/expensive to extract without risking it in a 30 year old
drive.

If you manage to get a bit-for-bit image of the disc, they can be mounted in RPCEmu or other tools to extract the RISC OS format data, or written to a
USB stick and then plugged into a modern RISC OS machine.

Theo
(who has a Zip drive somewhere but it's highly likely to be defunct from 20+ years of non-use)

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In message <v1qmuf$2ppg7$1@dont-email.me>
Rob Heaton <nosp@m.please> wrote:

I'm trying to help a local charity retrieve some archived data from some
zip disks that were used on a Risc PC.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have a
zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

These are 100MB zip disks.

I've one here, if you're still interested. It was taken out of a RiscPC
some years ago.

Kevin

--
Kevin Corney, Emley, West Yorkshire
Sent from my Pinebook Pro running RISC OS 5.29
Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten. - W. Ulbricht

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On Tue, 14 May 2024 16:08:48 +0100, Kevin Corney wrote:

In message <v1qmuf$2ppg7$1@dont-email.me>
Rob Heaton <nosp@m.please> wrote:

I'm trying to help a local charity retrieve some archived data from
some zip disks that were used on a Risc PC.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have a
zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

These are 100MB zip disks.

I've one here, if you're still interested. It was taken out of a RiscPC
some years ago.

I'm certainly interested! I've sent you an email.

Rob.

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On Thu, 16 May 2024 11:46:29 +1300, Bob Worm wrote:

Re: ZIP Drive
By: Rob Heaton to All on Sun May 12 2024 15:23:59

Hi, Rob.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have
a zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

I have a working zip drive, I don't really want to sell it but could be
persuaded to lend it out - whereabouts in the country are you?

Alternatively, if the contents are not sensitive, you could send the zip disks
across and I could either try to image them or take my drive to my
friend's
RPC and copy the files off...

Hi Bob,
Thank you for your kind offer, I've had an offer of a drive from Kevin, if
I can't get the drive to work, I'll email you and we'll see what we can
work out.

I'm in a town called Ormskirk in the North West.

Rob.

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On Thu, 16 May 2024 12:46:06 +0100, Theo wrote:

Rob Heaton <nosp@m.please> wrote:

I'm trying to help a local charity retrieve some archived data from
some zip disks that were used on a Risc PC.

I have a Risc PC here, but I don't have a zip drive, does anyone have a
zip drive they are no longer using and would like to sell?

These are 100MB zip disks.

For the record, Zip drives are fragile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death https://kb.iu.edu/d/ahhd

This can destroy drives, discs and the data on them.

If the data is important I'd proceed carefully: I would thoroughly test whatever drive you have on non-important discs before trying the
important ones.

If the data has value then it may be worth contacting a professional
recovery outfit; the actual data density isn't that high so it may not
be too difficult/expensive to extract without risking it in a 30 year
old drive.

If you manage to get a bit-for-bit image of the disc, they can be
mounted in RPCEmu or other tools to extract the RISC OS format data, or written to a USB stick and then plugged into a modern RISC OS machine.

Theo (who has a Zip drive somewhere but it's highly likely to be defunct
from 20+
years of non-use)

Thanks Theo,
That i scertainly good advice, I've got some disks here that I can test
the drive with first.
What would you recommend to us to create a bit-for-bit image?


Rob.

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Rob Heaton <nosp@m.please> wrote:

Thanks Theo,
That i scertainly good advice, I've got some disks here that I can test
the drive with first.
What would you recommend to us to create a bit-for-bit image?

I'm normally doing this on Linux with 'dd', 'dd-rescue' or 'dd_rescue' (all different), but you can use something which calls ADFS_DiscOp or equivalent
to image the disc sector by sector. There are some tools mentioned here,
and also a BASIC prog:

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24587

I think it'll depend if it's a SCSI Zip or an parallel Zip (was the filing system IZipFS: ?) as the DiscOp SWIs will be different.

There's also ADFFS:
https://forums.jaspp.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=14
- not sure if that'll do Zips.

Theo

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