[G4] Accessing the Zip Drive.

[John Niven]

Lewis,

Congratulations on joining the fold! First thing to
bear in mind is this is NOT a modern Mac so please
don't complain that it's not as fast as XXX.

However, it's a great place to start. I still use G4's
for work and find them fast enough for all my
"productivity" tasks. 

You are probably just exploring your new machine but
you might ask yourself "do I need a zip drive?" :-)
They only hold 100Mb or 250Mb which you can easily
exceed with a usb "thumb" drive these days. However, I
do sometimes use mine just because it's there to
transfer work from office to home.

You don't say much about your machine, go here to
identify your model:

http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/index.shtml

Assuming you have an AGP G4 (the most common with a
zip drive), I think the first thing to do would be
eject the disk in the zip drive. With the machine
turned off, open the side panel. At the front edge of
the case, by the DVD/zip are two tabs which if you
push will release the front bezel and reveal the
fronts of the DVD and zip drives. There is a very
small hole in upper right side of the zip drive front
panel into which you can insert a straightened paper
clip. Push the paper clip in and the disk should
eject.

You should check the back of the zip drive to see if
the power cord is plugged in. If you don't intend to
use it you could unplug it and save a little power.

If you are using OSX then the zip drivers are built
in. 
If you are NOT using OSX then you should be! Go get a
copy of Tiger (OSX 10.4). Max out your RAM, or at
least get 1Gb.

Under OSX with the machine turned on you should check
the "About This Mac" on the Apple menu (top left of
the screen). Select "More Info..." should start the
System Profiler. this tells you all about your machine
in various pages. ATA will tell you if the zip drive
is recognized. If it is then try inserting the zip
disk again, start the Disk Utility app and see if you
can format the disk.

Give us more information and we can take this further.

John



--- "Lewis J. Richards, Jr."
<macuser at mindcreative.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
> 
> I just recently purchased my first MAC computer, a
> G4 and I have been  
> able to find my way around and am very happy with my
> purchase,  
> however, this unit comes with a zip drive and it is
> the only thing I  
> haven't figured out. How do I access the zip drive?
> It seems to have  
> a zip disc in it but I am not able to access or
> remove the disc. Can  
> someone help me with this?
> 
> Thanks,
> _______________________________________________
> G4 mailing list
> G4 at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
>
http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/g4
> 



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