If I remember correctly there was GUEST floppy with driver and formatting tool. But I never used it, I used format.com.

DOS brings a external command called format.com that allows to format changeable media as well. It does work with ZIP disks.

Really, you can format ZIP disks with the classic DOS format.com? That's excellent news, I always thought a specific format tool from Iomega was needed. I kinda feel stupid now.
(elianda, I do admire your sarcasm level 😉 )

OK, revisiting this since I may not have made my intentions clear enough.

DOS' format apparently is a quick format, finishes in 1". Except from the fact that the manual itself discourages its use unless a long format from the Iomega tools has been made on the disk (then its OK to use it -I find no logic in this to be honest), it has another drawback: ZIP disks come pre-formatted. In case you want to re-format a MAC formatted disk for use on a DOS system, format.com simply fails. You need to use Iomega's utility. The good news is that the Windows tool is not the only option for doing so.

GUEST.EXE which can be run in autoexec or from the command line suffices only for accessing the drive. "Iomega SCSI Software For DOS" provides config.sys drivers and a proper replacement for the Windows tools through SCSIUTIL.EXE (long format included). Yes, SCSI is misleading, parallel and ATA/ATAPI drivers do function as virtual SCSI devices.

So there is an official tool to perform a long format of a ZIP disk in pure DOS. An excellent source of information on this is
http://pw2.netcom.com/~deepone/zipjaz/index.html
Although links are outdated, filenames are there and the actual files can still be found easily elsewhere. In particular this page describes what I wrapped in 2 lines.

I performed Tech Support for iomega back in 1998-1999. Zip and Jazz drives are garbage. Pure garbage. Unless you just want to own one to say you did I would just forget they existed. Horrible hardware that would always break and take all data with it.

I used mine for a few years without any trouble, but the infamous "Click of Death" was quite the scandal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death

rodimus80 wrote:

I performed Tech Support for iomega back in 1998-1999. Zip and Jazz drives are garbage. Pure garbage. Unless you just want to own one to say you did I would just forget they existed. Horrible hardware that would always break and take all data with it.

Agree, I was also working at support those years and you're absolutely right. I don't intend to actually use it to transfer files etc, but I had used them a lot so I've got to have one now 😀 Call it hardware-nostalgia.

konc wrote:

rodimus80 wrote:

I performed Tech Support for iomega back in 1998-1999. Zip and Jazz drives are garbage. Pure garbage. Unless you just want to own one to say you did I would just forget they existed. Horrible hardware that would always break and take all data with it.

Agree, I was also working at support those years and you're absolutely right. I don't intend to actually use it to transfer files etc, but I had used them a lot so I've got to have one now 😀 Call it hardware-nostalgia.

Fair Enough 😵

As long as they work, I don't see a problem with them.
But I have to admit that I kinda am biased here, I haven't had one die on me yet.

I do prefer the external ones though.