Here is a video demonstrating removing and replacing an IDE hard drive; what you will have to do will be very similar. If your computer has only one optical drive (likely) then you can use the second connector on the IDE cable for the IDE Zip Drive. I think most machines that came with Windows 98 were at least ATA66 which is likely faster than a zip drive. I actually have one (Zip drive) that came in a scrap computer (I've never used it) and as I recall it was attached with an ATA33 cable, but even that is quite a bit faster than the throughput of a parallel port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLwELSyJOUs

Harry Potter wrote on 2024-07-27, 22:58:

Hi! I have an Iomega Parallel Zip100 drive connected to my Win98SE tower and use it to store information compressed using DriveSpace even though I don't need to. The problem is that the drive is very slow. It's especially slow when compressing a disk: it takes over an hour just to scan for errors. Most of the disks came with something on them, but they seem to have been put there by the factory, because their filenames imply intro stuff, but I remove the stuff before compressing, so, after the check, things go a little faster. I believe I still have an IDE version somewhere but don't know where. I am not all that familiar with the hardware of the computer but believe I can handle the CMOS, the jumpers and the connection. First off, how do I determine if it's compatible with my system? I assume it's at least EIDE, as the system has a hard drive of about 127GB formatted. Second, if it's compatible, how easy is it to install? Third, is it worth the risk, or should I find a professional? Once installed, I can just use the Guest driver to install the drive. If I hire a professional, will he/she offer me a discount if I handle the rest of the installation myself?

I had a PP zip drive back in the day, and there were some settings that had to be right to get reasonable performance.

Can't remember exactly, but in the BIOS you want the parallel port to be on the highest settings, ECP+EPP maybe. And with an IRQ.

In Windows, there is something to do too. Perhaps it was just running an iomega acceleration program? Otherwise maybe you have to install the drivers after the bios settings are changed, and that might uninstalling what you have now.

I never used an IDE zip drive, but the parallel port one was great for me for a year or two. Once the settings on the PCs were right, its performance was tolerable, though I wasn't doing insanity like drivespace. I was downloading various copyright violations at university and taking them home. I had 10 disks, and could fill them in an few hours, including doing the downloads, and considering this was the 33.6K dial-up era that kind of bandwidth was staggering.

On a slow drive interface, you usually get something like 50% speed boost from compression.... UNLESS you are running a particularly slow CPU. Under DOS it was about a DX2/66 where it got faster, under 9x, I wanna say a P100.

Repo Man11: I'm asking about an IDE Zip100 drive, not a hard drive. progman.exe and BitWrangler: the main problem is the time it takes to compress a disk: DriveSpace spends over an hour just to check for errors every time it compresses a Zip disk. progman.exe: Where can I get such an accelerator program?

Harry Potter wrote on 2024-07-28, 08:13:

progman.exe: Where can I get such an accelerator program?

IIRC it was part of the Iomega tools or software. I also had a 3.5" Iomega floppy, and I think there was a program on that along side drivers.

There might not have been a specific program, but maybe a button somewhere in some Iomega thing. Or a check box deep in some settings..... I had stopped using my Zip drive by 2000 or so, so things are super vague, sorry.

I'd better look. Thank you.

I wasn't imagining things!

Once again, after a drive letter can be reliably created and maintained, use the Parallel Port Accelerator program (PPAOPT.EXE) to accelerate the port.

http://www.troubleshooters.com/tfresh95/zipdrive.htm

There's the program name you need, PPAOPT.EXE.

I looked for Guest.exe and found it in a folder that contains my DOS programs, but it was just the DOS version. 🙁 I then tried Guest95 and found a seemingly Italian version, as the path contained the word "Italiano." 🙁 I then looked on a flash drive and my Downloads folder--I tried both "Guest" and "Iomega"--and still didn't find it. I'm sure it was on the system and in English, as the Windows driver works and displays text in English. I will look for it again online.

I found the item on driverguide.com and am preparing to install it now. 😀

Good, if you are stuck still, there's what I wrote in the meantime......

A while back I dumped all my old CDRs to the NAS, and I have some Iomega stuff:

IomegaWare 2.2.1 for win32.exe
IomegaWare Software Version 1.0 - ioware9x.zip
Iomega Zip Tools.zip - Dos, 3.11, 95 and NT, in a readme "Zip Tools Software, Version 5.4"

In none of these can I see a pptopt.exe or similar. I think 2 of the above files will be too big to post here, but if you want those driver/software packs then something can be figured out.

I'm about done with some file copy operations to the flash drive that is to transfer the file and a lot of files I want to install on the computer and will try to get back to you.

I had to cancel one of the operations, as it was taking too long. 🙁 I tried to install the file but got an error message that it was incompatible with my version of Windows. I just downloaded another driver and will try it now.

Harry Potter wrote on 2024-07-28, 08:13:

Repo Man11: I'm asking about an IDE Zip100 drive, not a hard drive. progman.exe and BitWrangler: the main problem is the time it takes to compress a disk: DriveSpace spends over an hour just to check for errors every time it compresses a Zip disk. progman.exe: Where can I get such an accelerator program?

Yes I realize that, but the procedure is basically identical with IDE drives.

I successfully reinstalled the driver and didn't see the file. 🙁 I used the Find... option in both the Iomega folder and the whole hard drive. 🙁 Of course, Zip disks are unreliable and break down often, so maybe I'm better off using flash drives, but I like Zip disks because they have high capacity but not so high that they won't benefit from compression. 😀

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPMkKySPtzI&l … avKIk5jASN7N4Jm

I admit that I only watched the beginning of the movie but already know that the IDE version is going to be faster than the Parallel drive. I really want to know about installing the IDE drive. If I can find my IDE Zip100 drive, I'll need directions to install it.

IOWare9x.zip's readme.txt's section on parallel port speed:

If the computer has a bi-directional parallel port, the Zip drive can be set to use a mode which provides data transfer […]
Show full quote

If the computer has a bi-directional parallel port, the Zip
drive can be set to use a mode which provides data transfer
speeds of 6MB to 17MB per minute, depending on the
computer's processor speed. (If you are not sure whether
your computer has a bi-directional parallel port, refer to
the owner's manual that came with your computer.)

The fastest mode supported by the Zip drive requires a
special "Enhanced Parallel Port" (EPP) chip set to be
present on the host computer. In this mode, the data
transfer speed for the Zip drive is about 17MB to 22MB per
minute, depending on the computer's processor speed.
Because of the variety of EPP chip sets, and because there
are some chip sets that mimic a true EPP chip but do not
support EPP transfers, not all systems with "EPP" can
support this mode for the Zip drive.

Iomega software for Zip includes a parallel port accelerator
that can automatically set up both your computer and your
Iomega software to use the fastest transfer mode for the Zip
drive that is supported by your computer hardware. Under
Windows 95/98, you can run the parallel port accelerator by
double-clicking on the icon in the Iomega Tools folder on
your Start Programs menu.

This file is from July 21, 1998, the readme.txt is titled "IomegaWare Software Version 1.0".

Of course, running later drivers or software seems sensible, but the program that might help (and only speed thing up to a snail's pace: drivespace on Zip disks is not a good idea) appears to be in this package, because the readme refers to "Iomega software for Zip includes a parallel port accelerator".

Please try the drivers on some sacrificial machine or VM, just in case they are garbage in some way.

I looked at the file and didn't see the program or anything similar. 🙁

I can't post on the forums the file IomegaWare 2.2.1 for win32.exe (though I likely renamed the file to that, decades ago), but I have test installed the package in a 98 VM.

Once installed, in the Iomega start menu group, is Parallel Port Accelerator.

Have you not got that?

When I installed the "Iomegaware" I even unticked the three optional junkware things and only installed basic tools and drivers. The parallel port accelerator was installed.

"IomegaWare 2.2.1 for win32.exe" is 15.2 MiB (15,950,848 bytes), and that filename is probably not original. But that should be a clue as to what will give you the accelerator program.