Iomega Z100iDE ZIP
| Bus type | IDE |
|---|---|
| Bus version | PIO-4 |
| Bus width | 16-bit |
| Bus speed | 8.33 MHz (16.66 MB/sec) |
| Manufacturer | Iomega |
| Chipset | Unknown |
| Compatible with | ZIP100 |
| Connectors | None |
| Requires -5VDC? | No |
| Requires -12VDC? | No |
| Floppy Drive | |
| Media type | Zip diskProperty "Media type" has a restricted application area and cannot be used as annotation property by a user. |
| Sides | 2 |
| Tracks | |
| Driver | N/A |
The Iomega Z100iDE ZIP is a native IDE (non-ATAPI) ZIP drive. It appears to the host machine as a hard drive, and does not require any drivers to run.
While not having to load any drivers may seem like a good idea, if the BIOS does not fully support removable IDE drives (e.g. some 486 PCs) then the machine may have to be rebooted after changing disks in order to see the contents of the new disk. Formatting disks may also have no effect.
Native IDE (non-ATAPI) Zip drives also cannot be booted as drive A: without BIOS support, and must be configured correctly otherwise they will appear to the system as drive C:.
It seems that these drawbacks were behind the reason for switching to the ATAPI protocol, so that the drives would be handled more like IDE CD-ROM drives, which have supported removable media since they were first introduced.
The native IDE versions of the drives seem to be most commonly associated with Dell computers, which presumably had the necessary BIOS support for these to work correctly as removable media devices.
Additional photos
Overhead
Rear panel
Series
There are other devices in this series from the same manufacturer.
