Iomega hardware has outlived its manufacturer by more than a decade, so when an eGo, StorCenter or Zip cartridge stops responding there is no support line left to call. Here is what each failure actually means — and the point at which trying again does damage.
Iomega was absorbed into LenovoEMC and wound down, so firmware, drivers and replacement enclosures are long gone. Almost every Iomega job that reaches us is a drive that still holds its data behind a dead bridge board or a worn mechanism.
The eGo and Prestige portables are the Iomega units that most often arrive here, and the failure is rarely the disk. Inside is an ordinary 2.5-inch drive behind a USB bridge board, and it is the bridge that dies — from a knocked connector, a failed power regulator, or simple age. The symptoms are consistent: the drive is silent and undetected, or it mounts briefly and vanishes, or Windows offers to format it. Underneath, the disk is frequently perfect.
The practical test costs nothing: try a different cable and a different port, and listen. A drive that spins up quietly but never appears is pointing at the bridge. A drive that clicks, ticks, or spins up and immediately down is pointing at the mechanism — and that one should be unplugged and left alone.
StorCenter and ix-series units are small Linux NAS boxes running standard software RAID underneath a proprietary web interface. When the unit itself fails — power supply, board, or a firmware update that never completed — the disks inside are usually untouched, and the array can be reassembled away from the enclosure entirely. Because the underlying format is conventional mdadm, a StorCenter whose hardware has died is often a more straightforward recovery than the interface would suggest.
What complicates it is a rebuild. If the unit has been left trying to resynchronise onto a failing member, stop it. Send either the whole unit or the disks in bay order, labelled.
Zip drives produced one of the most recognisable failures in computing. The click of death is a misaligned or damaged read/write head striking the cartridge, and the reason it earned its reputation is that a failing drive damages the cartridge it is fed — which then damages the next drive it is inserted into. If you have Zip cartridges that matter, do not test them in a drive of unknown condition, and do not keep retrying a cartridge that has started clicking.
Jaz and REV media are read on matched, known-good mechanisms and imaged in a single controlled pass. These are genuinely obsolete formats, so cartridges are read once, correctly, rather than repeatedly.
An Iomega external or internal drive is from £300 +VAT; cartridge media is from £250 +VAT; a StorCenter or other multi-disk NAS is from £500 +VAT. Every job starts with a free 48-hour diagnostic and a written quote, and most are no fix, no fee — where the mechanism needs opening we take a 50% deposit, with the balance due only on success. Send external units whole rather than stripping the disk out; on several Iomega models the bridge is part of how the disk is addressed.
Try a different cable and port first, and listen to the drive. If it spins quietly but never appears, the USB bridge board has usually failed and the disk inside is generally fine — that is a straightforward recovery. If it clicks or spins up and down, unplug it and leave it; the mechanism is failing and further attempts spread the damage.
Not from the manufacturer. Iomega was absorbed into LenovoEMC and the brand was wound down, so there are no firmware updates, drivers or replacement enclosures being produced. In practice, an Iomega drive that has failed is a recovery job rather than a repair one.
It is a damaged or misaligned head striking the cartridge as it loads. The danger is that it is contagious in both directions — a failing drive damages cartridges, and a damaged cartridge damages the next drive it is put into. If a Zip cartridge holds anything you need, stop testing it in unknown drives.
Usually yes. StorCenter and ix-series units run standard Linux software RAID beneath their own interface, so when the enclosure or controller dies the disks can be imaged and the array reassembled outside the unit. Send the whole NAS, or the disks labelled in bay order.
From £300 plus VAT for a single external or internal drive, £250 plus VAT for Zip, Jaz or REV cartridges, and from £500 plus VAT for a StorCenter or other multi-disk unit. All fixed in a written quote after a free 48-hour diagnostic.