[Leica] Zip drive questions?

["Bill Campbell" <billc@clark.net>]

David,

Was going to send this directly to you, but I thought others on the list
might benefit from my experience with Iomega and the "click-of-death" <g>

I bought a parallel port zip drive soon after they came out (several years
ago), used it without incident until recently when I discovered it suffered
from the dreaded "click-of-death". I figured that since it was out of
warranty, Iomega wouldn't do anything about the problem, so I bought a
replacement.

Having just bought a second computer, and getting tired of moving my new zip
drive between them, I decided to call Iomega to find out if they would
repair my damaged drive and how much it would cost. I explained that it was
*way* out of warranty, and that it suffered from the CoD. The tech I spoke
with asked me to perform some diagnostics on the drive (basically just
booting into DOS mode, loading the "guest" driver, and try to copy a file to
the zip drive), as soon as the problem became apparent the tech offered to
replace the drive totally free of charge (no shipping) with a *refurbished*
zip drive. I accepted, and was offered two choices: 1)send damaged drive to
Iomega, then receive replacement, or 2)supply a credit card number, get
refurb, then return damaged drive in the same box within (a week or so) and
not be billed. I choose #2 and had no problems, refurb drive works great and
I was never billed after returning the original drive in their postage paid
box, not bad!

Also, I found out that using zip disks in a damaged drive will damage the
disk itself, and repeated use of a damaged disk can possibly damage a good
drive. Iomega has a *lifetime* guarantee on the disks, they will replace
them free of charge (I had three disks damaged).

Just as a sidenote, I've found that since I started using CD-R drives, I
don't use my zip disks as much as I once did (although, since I've already
made the investment, they're a good place to store data until I accumulate
enough to transfer to CD). A 100mb zip disk sells for about $10 or so, a
650mb write once CD is under $1.

Hope this is helpful... Bill Campbell
- --

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 13:36:28 -0700
From: David Duff <duffdl@uswest.net>
Subject: [Leica] Zip drive questions?

Dear Luggers,
  Have any of you had experience in getting external Zip drives
repaired? What did the final bill come to? I'm curious as I have two
parallel units that are non-functioning and exihibiting what I've heard
others call the "click of death". PCZone is selling re-furbished ones
for US$59.99, and I'm figuring it might not be cost effective to repair
these guys.