Talk:Ditto (drive)

Red?

The article states that both the drives and tapes were red, and yet the picture is of a beige drive and a blue cartridge. 68.113.47.43 (talk) 22:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

And my tapes were black... 193.63.174.10 (talk) 14:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the picture obviously proves that statement wrong. I'm removing it. --66.18.233.247 (talk) 05:18, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Drive color usually varied by the drive capacity on external versions. The external 2gig is brick red/brown.

Indeed it was the 2Gb version of the format where both the external drives and the tapes were a red colour. Other drives in the Ditto series varied in colour with the internal drives being the usual beige colour. The 3, 5 and 7Gb tapes for the Ditto Max were also red in colour but the 10Gb tape was black.

I have just scrapped an internal Ditto Max drive which although it would work with the Ditto Dash card, refused point blank to work with a floppy interface. 86.176.156.193 (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Reliability?

Anyone know what their breakdown record was like? My DittoMax was the only backup method so far that's caused me to lose all my files within the time period that the archive was actually active as a failover for my main HDD (3.2Gb woo)... Hard disc went poof, most recent tape decided to jam whilst restoring (not sure if fault of drive or cassette), and secondary damage caused the older copy to get chewed also. Never really worked in a stellar fashion before that either. I'd be tempted to label them junk, but its a bit unfair without knowing the more-than-one-person stats. 193.63.174.10 (talk) 14:10, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I don't doubt there are people who had problems: I personally had few problems, and even restored a corrupt hard disc or three in anger using the system. The only problems that I really had were the usual tendency for the tape to slacken in use (easily fixed with a full wind and rewind) and when the head required cleaning. 86.176.156.193 (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

For all I know, one or other of those was the actual problem we suffered... software never gave us a warning about it, though, manuals were probably pretty thin on both fronts, and evidently the hardware was completely unable to detect those problems for itself if so... 51.7.49.27 (talk) 17:39, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Drivers

Windows 98 drivers. http://download.iomega.com/english/ditto98.exe <-Link works, just tested it. Iomega site claims they don't have this! NT drivers here, supposedly also supports 95 and 98. http://www.download3k.com/Install-Iomega-Ditto-Tools-8-1-98.html One of those may work with Windows Me. There's no way to get the parallel port drives to work with any Windows version other than 9x, Me and NT4.

Ditto tape capacities after reformat?

If the various Ditto tapes are bulk erased, what would their capacities be after being reformatted as standard QIC or Travan tapes?

Zero - as bulk erasing would remove the formatting that was required for the system to operate. No Ditto drive was able to low level format totally blank tapes. 109.156.49.202 (talk) 14:39, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Special format

Has anyone managed to restore a factory format to a Ditto tape or format standard tapes to Ditto format?

Without exception, no Ditto drive had the capability of low level formatting a tape. 86.176.156.193 (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Internal drive

I installed a Ditto drive in a PC in 1997 that had a powered drawer which pulled the cartridge completely inside the drive. That drive had an internal chime that dingled whenever the drawer was opened or closed.

The internal Ditto Max drive is what you are describing. Are you sure about the chime, because my recently scrapped unit had no such feature? 86.176.156.193 (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I'm sure. I thought it was the software making the sound so I disconnected the speakers from the soundcard and it still chimed whenver the drawer was opened or closed. It took Iomega a long time to release NT4 drivers so I had to setup the system dual boot with Windows 95 and NT4 both on FAT16. Windows 95 was used only to run the Ditto Max drive to backup files from the NT partition. I even called Iomega and they assured me they had NT4 drivers, just hadn't got them on the website yet but I could pay to have them sent on floppies. They sent me NT 3.5 drivers. Bizzybody (talk) 05:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)