Any uses for an Iomega clik!/PocketZip drive under Win98?

[Multibooter]

I have an old Iomega clik! PCMCIA drive, several 40MB clik! disks and a USB Dock for the PCMCIA drive. I have been wondering whether this is just old, obsolete and useless computer junk, or whether this clik! drive could be still useful for some special purpose under DOS, Win98 or WinXP, in 2011.

I have used clik! disks via a PCMCIA interface and via USB. There exists also a parallel port dock for the clik! drive, which I never got.

a) PCMCIA interface

The clik! disk is inserted into the clik! PCMCIA card. This clik! disk inside the clik! PCMCIA card was recognized immediately under Win98 when inserted into the PCMCIA slot of my old laptop, because I had installed for my zip and jaz drives IomegaWare v2.2.1, which is probably the least buggy version, a long time ago.

b ) USB interface

When the clik! disk is inside the Clik! PCMCIA card, and both are inserted into the USB clik! dock model C40-D, the 3 together as seen/detected as a USB mass storage device. Under Win98 (with nusb) and under WinXP the USB dock+PCMCIA card+clik! disk are detected and installed automatically, no user intervention is required.

Here is a list of characteristics of clik! disks and clik! drives, which speak AGAINST using them at all:

- clik! disks are quite slow. Checking the disk, for example, with Norton Disk Doctor, including a surface test, takes about 27 minutes

- the clik! disks are special miniature disks and the clik! drives cannot be used with regular floppy disks, in contrast to LS-120 drives, for example

- the 40MB capacity of a clik! disk makes clik! disks way too small for today's storage requirements

- clik! disks can be made bootable, but I don't know which special benefit it would have to boot from 40MB clik! disks.

- clik! disks, when used inside the PCMCIA slot, instead of inside the external USB dock, get hot, maybe 50 degrees centigrade. No idea how reliable magnetic media is, if it gets baked at such a temperature.

The only use I could imagine of the Iomega clik! USB docking station would be --- to serve as a docking station/USB adapter for an Imation/Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive. The clik! USB dock requires (this is a must) its own 5V power supply, a standard external power supply, with normal polarity as used for most current USB 2.0 mass storage devices. The Imation/Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive usually works with power from the PCMCIA port, but came with an optional 5V external power supply, which had a 5V-plug with a REVERSED polarity, as found with some older USB 1.1 mass storage devices.

I am just afraid of destroying both the (rare) clik! USB dock and the Imation/Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive in such an experiment. Any ideas, suggestions or cautionary notes?

I am attaching a screen shot of a clik! disk formatted to UDF 2.01. clik! disks are usually formatted FAT16. The Iomega tab in the screen shot gives access to the tools of IomegaWare v2.2.1 (e.g. Drive Info, Drive Sleep Time, Drive Diagnostics, Disk Info including date manufactured and Protection Status (write protect, password protect). clik1 disks have no sliding tab to switch beween write-protected and write-enabled. The selection "Make drive non-removable" is greyed out and de-selected. The context menu of the clik! drive contains the selections "Iomega Format" and "Iomega Protect". Iomega Format can format a UDF-formatted clik! disk back to FAT16.

Any ideas what else clik! drives could be used for in 2011?

Edited August 3, 2011 by Multibooter

[Multibooter]

I am just afraid of destroying both the (rare) clik! USB dock and the Imation/Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive in such an experiment.

I inserted the PCMCIA card of the Accurite LS-120 drive into the Iomega USB clik! dock when the clik! dock was not yet connected to the computer. The green activity light of the Accurite LS-120 drive, with an LS-120 diskette inserted, started to flicker, but when pressing the eject button on the LS-120 drive, the LS-120 diskette was not ejected. I had a 5V 1.0A power supply connected to the Iomega clik! dock, which has a label in the back stating "5V 1.0A".

I suspected that the power supply was not strong enough to power both the Iomega clik! dock and the Accurite LS-120 drive. The user manual of the Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive stated 5V, 1000mA peak. So I connected a stronger power supply (5V, 3.0A) to the Iomega USB clik! dock, and lo and behold, the activity light of the Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive stopped flickering and I could eject the inserted LS-120 diskette. The Accurite LS-120 drive was drawing sufficient power from the Iomega USB clik! dock.

I then connected the Iomega USB clik! dock via USB cable to my up-and-running Inspiron 7500 laptop. Win98 detected the USB clik! dock with the Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA card inside, but the Device Manager displayed "Iomega Click!Dock" [note the differing spelling of "Click!Dock", not "clik! dock", symptomatic of Iomega quality control when it comes to software] with a yellow exclamation mark. The General tab of the properties sheet of the USB clik! dock displayed under Device status: "This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed (Code 10)". Similar under WinXP.

No hardware seems to have been damaged during my experiment, but apparently an Accurite LS-120 PCMCIA drive does not work when connected to an iomega USB Clik! dock.

No idea what the Iomega clik! stuff can be used for in 2011. Any suggestions?

Edited August 3, 2011 by Multibooter

[jaclaz]

[note the differing spelling of "Click!Dock", not "clik! dock", symptomatic of Iomega quality control when it comes to software]

Please note how that sentence may be understood as somehow stating that unlike their software, their hardware was excellent., which is IMHO quite a hazardous statement.

I have no experience with actual "clik"'s, but my experience with some batches of (original) Zip drives (both actual drive and media) was at the time a nightmare.

First 100 Mb ones usually worked very well.

The "second edition" of the 100 and the first of the 250 Mb ones (if i recall correctly) were a nightmare.

Heck, the clik got "promoted" to "Pocket.Zip" probably because of the above Click of death_

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Pocket_Zip_drive

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

Topics like this make me wish I still had my Iomega binder... or at least remembered more about dealing with their drives. I remember the Clik! was not a big seller and probably received less than 10 calls on it ever. As such, I can't remember anything really specific about the drive. Heck, we didn't even get one in house to test, but we did get a disk. What was the point of that?

Then again, maybe Utah was paying attention to the fact that we couldn't figure out how to break any of our drives or disks to replicate customer's problems... Maybe they just figured we didn't need it.

PS: I still have a bunch of the tech disks with all the software.

[Multibooter]

I am attaching a Disk Information Report, generated by GRDuw, for a 40MB clik! disk, which is really tiny, fits inside a PCMCIA card, with a diameters of about 5cm. The diskette is in a sturdy metal casing.

clik!_info.txt