[Chimpmaster]

Hi ive just bought one of those new usb powered zip 250 drives (no ac adaptor required as its powered through the usb port).

Very nice - im very happy with it but- how can i span large files across multiple zip disks? Like say i have a .img file or ready compressed file that is 500mb in size - surely i can span this across two zip disks?

Please help me - there is nothing int he help files about this. If you try to drag and drop a large file onto the disk it just says that the file is too big, but i cant believe that you cant archive files larger than 1 disk in size on this technology.

Ill be majorly pissed off if you cant

[PeteWK]

I have the FireWire powered iomega Zip 250 myself. And I don't think it will do what you're asking it to. My question here is, why on earth don't you have a CD-RW. Your application is exactly what they're good at. My CD-RW will mount files that are up to about 700mb.

PeteWK

[Chimpmaster]

Thanks for responding Pete.

Cost is the main issue why i dont have a cdrw yet. I would never buy a usb one but firewire ones are still pretty expensive in australia. A good one is around $1000 AUS (or $550 US).

That is more money than i have to spare on the computer for a while - in the last 5 months i bought an indigo ibook with 192mb ram, an airport card and basestation, and a few games. This has costed me around $4500 AUS or $2500 US. Ive just bought a unit as well and i dont have the spare grand for a cd writer.

I desperately needed something to backup my data and went for the zip drive because ive heard they are very reliable and a fairly common format now, plus price. I only paid around $340 AUS for the lastest model, which was very reasonable. Sure the disks are expensive, around $220 for 10 here, which is $100 US, but the total cost was still only half that of an external cd writer for me.

On pcs you can span a large zip file across several disks. I just assumed you could do this on zip disks too. DAMN IT. Now i have to save up for a cd writer.

[Jim Retzner]

Unless you want to be able to access parts of backed up files on the fly what about software like Retrospect? I use it to back up my entire hard disk to 250 meg zip cartridges.

[Chimpmaster]

Thanks for your post(s).

Retrospect would have been fine, except that it costs $49.95 US and has a whole hwap of functions I dont need. Fortunately I found a good shareware program that works for me (just found it tonight).

Its called splitsville. It lets you split any file into equally sized smaller files, and then rejoin them later by simply putting them in the same folder and double clicking the first file. I tried it with a 260mb .img file (a burnt cd image) and it worked beautifully!

Great for someone like me who wants to back up a largish amount of data (around 2 gb) onto 250mb zip disks without backing up my whole hard drive or getting a cd burner. WIcked. Now all i need is another 6 zip disks 8)

[Bugs Bunny]

You could have used Disk Copy You already have it.