Here is an old report of a growing, but alarming problem, with the Zip
disks and disk drive from Iomega Corporation.
kelly
from PC Week, February 16, 1998.
Mind the Gap
Zip disks dying from 'click death'
--------------------------------------------------------- By Jim
Louderback
02.16.98
[INLINE] Have you heard of "click death"? Well, if you own or support
Zip drives, you'd better brush up on it.
According to many reports from users, Click Death is a particularly
nasty infestation that can ruin your Zip disks. It can spread from
disk to disk and even bring your drive to its knees.
Click Death happens when an Iomega Zip drive starts emitting a sharp
clicking noise when accessing a Zip disk. For Zip drives, that's the
death knell.
Got valuable data on that Zip disk? Too bad, because most people who
encounter this click end up with unreadable disks.
Even worse, it appears that after disks have been trashed by Click
Death, using them in other drives can destroy those drives as well.
Whatever happens inside a stricken Zip disk apparently destroys other
pristine Zip drive heads--a vicious circle of destruction.
The only solution is to kiss your valuable data goodbye and replace
your Zip drive.
How does Click Death happen? No one seems to know. Even Iomega
couldn't provide any useful information. But there are almost as many
theories as there are victims.
_________________________________________________________________
If you've got valuable backups on Zip, better copy them to something
else soon.
_________________________________________________________________
Some seem to think it's a manufacturing defect that affects a small
portion of the drives. Others speculate that attempting to back up
files without selecting a particular file can cause problems. Whatever
the cause, this is not an isolated problem. There are a few Web sites
devoted to this problem--the most complete is at
www.thirdeyesp.com/jatin/iomega/. Here you'll find enough horror
stories about the Iomega Zip drive to make you swear off the format
for good. If you've got valuable backups on Zip, better copy them to
something else soon.
And now, a Pa update
Longtime readers of this column are familiar with my long-suffering,
computer-using Pa. Don't tell him this, but he's my guinea pig. I make
him buy wacky new computer products that I swear will make his life
easier and then monitor the results.
I never would have imagined that Dell would become part of the
computer hell I inflict upon him. But before Christmas he decided that
he needed to upgrade to a "state of the art" system.
"Why not buy from Dell again?" I suggested, and he agreed.
Bad move. He'd relocated from New Jersey to Nantucket since his last
Dell purchase, and apparently Dell can't deal with transient
customers. Although he repeatedly informed the salesperson of his new
address, one complete system and one partial replacement system were
shipped to his old address--only to be refused and returned to Dell.
Despite hours on hold, and at least three full runarounds by the sales
folk and customer service, it still took him almost two months from
when his credit card was billed to when a complete system finally
arrived.
Something's wrong when a company ships to the wrong address, won't
admit it, won't help and then reships to that wrong address. Dell may
be flying high, but if this anecdote is indicative of its customer
service, maybe the Compaq way is leaching into the Austin groundwater.
If you've moved recently, perhaps your next PC should come from
Gateway.
For the record, the Zip drive I made Dad buy has worked just fine,
although he doesn't use it much.
Jim Louderback is the editorial director of ZDTV and a contributing
editor to PC Week. He can be reached at [log in to unmask]
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