Thinkpads Forum

Hi All!

I have an IBM Thinkpad 365XD, 40Mg RAM, 1 G Hard Drive, 56k PC card modem, W98SE. This is a "pre-USB" model, only having parallel and serial ports.

Here is my problem:- I have an Iomega "Clik" Mini-Zipdisk PC card which takes 40Mg disks. As this model is no longer available, I am unable to buy replacement disks anywhere (even on the Net). Because of the small HD I need to store a lot of stuff.

Does anyone have any old mini-zipdisk's they are not using? I will be happy to pay for them (if they're not too expensive )

As far as upgrading, the only zip drives around are all USB so I can't replace my mini-zipdisk.

However, I have heard that one can buy "USB to serial chords". See: http://tmg4apc.com/index.php?cPath=25_38

Will these work with a TP365XD? Is the pre-USB era motherboard capable of using these conversion devices?

Thanks

Howdy!

I don't know about the USB stuff, but what I've used for my 365X is a parallel-port Zip 100 drive. This was the very first Zip made and it works great thru your parallel port. Can probably find one used on Ebay for very little, as they are quite slow... but they work very well.

I have a bunch of 100MB Zip disks I don't use any more. I'd be happy to send you some... If you can find the drive, let me know about the disks.

Thanks Bob, I'll look around for one and let you know. At the same time I'll still keep looking for the mini-zipdisks.

Jadag wrote:Will these work with a TP365XD? Is the pre-USB era motherboard capable of using these conversion devices?

No!

While adapting a USB port to a Serial connector is quite common, there's no such animal as a Serial to USB connector.

Hosting a USB device requires a motherboard capable of supporting 32BIT (PCI) devices, your 365XD only supports 16BIT (ISA) devices.

Nor can you use a PCMCIA card to USB solution as it requires a Cardbus enabled PC card slot.

Regards,

James

Any computer with CardBus can theoretically support USB with a card but unfortunatley, the 365 series lacks that.

The oldest ThinkPad I know of that has CardBus is anything in the 760E family (E, EL, ED, ELD) so that'd be the oldest IBM laptop you'd have any sort of chance of getting USB on.

The oldest ThinkPad that I know of with USB would probably be any 770 or the 380XD.

Thanks for all the input. It looks like I'll have to either look for an old external storage device with parallel or serial port connectors

or

I'll just have to keep searching for old minizip disks

Please let me know if any of you come across a source.

If the real problem is backing up data, there are many ways to go, and I think the easiest is to make yourself a network and put the data on another box.

Your machine can use wired or WiFi network cards, as long as they are 16 bit or PC Card and not 32-bit or CardBus. Many manufacturers made or make such cards.

Aah ... if I had another box!

Yes, but every method of backing up costs some amount of money.

You can keep buying your 40MB disks; or get a USB FLASH memory device; or a hard drive in a network box.

Or you can get an old laptop for nearly nothing (and $30 shipping!) and put all your data on a separate partition. A wired NIC is about $5 or less, and a WAP is a few dollars.

Plus then you'd be able to surf while sipping your latte at the coffee shop.

Before my 760E crapped out on me, I would back up it's data by keeping a hard drive inside the docking station and I'd routinely back up my documents to it.

For the 380, I just use the network to keep the documents folder and any other important folders in sync with the ones on my desktop. I've also kept the few previous hard drives that were in my 380 loose and they still have all their files on them so recovering from a hard disk failure on the 380 is as easy as installing the old hard drive and updating the documents folder.

I also at one point had an extra desktop set up on my network for the sole purpose of backing up files and documents.

Here's yet another option... Buy a Compact Flash (CF) memory card, with a PC Card ("PCMCIA") to CF adapter. Then this becomes just another hard drive, as far as your computer is concerned. WIN98SE handles this very easily. I know this works, since I have a Compact Flash card acting as my D: drive right now. (I don't have a CD ROM).

These memory cards are available as large as 1GB, and if you compress it, it will hold even more.

Click disks sell on ebay for very little
Parrellel port Zip and LS-120s are common and cheap too, ocasionly see a new in box items even.
I bought a new Parellel port CDRW for less than $50.

I'd look into finding a used Zip 100 on eBay. Those things, despite all the talk about the click of death, are really rock solid. I've had my Zip100 sinc '95 or '96 and I still use most of the original disks too. As long as you don't give the drive or disks any real abuse, they'll hold up for as long as you need them to. The click of death is something to consider but you shouldn't get that unless you downright abuse the drive. Those things are really aot more reliable than some sites may have you believe and the Zip100 is probably the most reliable Zip made.

leoblob wrote:Here's yet another option... Buy a Compact Flash (CF) memory card, with a PC Card ("PCMCIA") to CF adapter. Then this becomes just another hard drive, as far as your computer is concerned. WIN98SE handles this very easily. I know this works, since I have a Compact Flash card acting as my D: drive right now. (I don't have a CD ROM).

These memory cards are available as large as 1GB, and if you compress it, it will hold even more.

I second this heartily. You can find a PC card to CF adaptor for around $10 and you can get a 1GB CF card for under $50 after rebate (or a 2GB for under $80 a/r).

That's aboutn 25x the storeage of your 40MB zip disk, plus it's fully integrated into the computer, totally portable, and the media can be read by other platforms more readily than an obsolete zip disk (all you need is a $10 USB card reader, any machine running Win2k or newer with usb ports can read your data), plus I'd take CF over zip disk any day for reliablilty. If you're on a budget, I've seen 256MB cards being blown out for as little as $12. Keep an eye on techbargains.com

I like what you're suggesting. I think this is the answer for my configuration. Thanks to all.

Jadag wrote:I'll just have to keep searching for old minizip disks

Please let me know if any of you come across a source.

Here ya go! http://www.compuvest.com/Description.jsp?iid=60174 (I'm pretty sure these are what you're talking about...)

I've purchased stuff from these guys before and they are OK.

You found them !!!!!

Thank you VERY much!

I really appreciate your help. I will contact them after the weekend to verify and place an order.

Glad these appear to be what you're looking for!

I realize that this thread is old, but I have a very relevant question.

Would a pcmcia sd card reader act the same as a cf one? Would 98 recognize it as another hard drive or is that something that's specific to cf?

peace

I believe it should work the same regardless of the type of media. Some readers have limitations on the capacity of the cards they recognize (e.g., less than 1GB).

Thank you, I'll have to try that out. I'm trying to work with a 365X.