Formatting PC Zip Discs for the Macintosh

by Melvin Ah Ching, September 30, 1999.

As many of you may know, Zip Discs for the PC are more plentiful than those for the Macintosh. The local Costco Stores sell them in bulk packs formatted for PC only. The prices are good, but the format is wrong for Mac users.

Fortunately with PC Exchange bundled with every Mac these days, Macintoshes can more or less read the contents of PC formatted Zip Discs and other media.

What some Macintosh users may not realize that a Zip Disc formatted for the PC is not in the proper format. It should be formatted for the Macintosh. This insures the integrity of the Mac data you will be writing to the disc among other things.

You can tell when a zip disc is formatted for the Mac or PC. Mac Zip discs have a colored icon with a red accent. The PC disc has an "ugly" black and white icon with the word PC written on it. (See figures at right).

Macintosh users can easily reformat their PC Zip discs by using the Zip Tools utility that came with your Zip drive. Reformatting is very easy. Just follow this simple eight step instruction. How to Format Your PC Zip Disc for the Macintosh

1. Put the blank PC zip disc in your Mac. It will display a very ugly black and white icon indicating that the Mac can read the disc, but that it is formatted for the PC.

2. Start the Zip Tools software. A box with several options will show up once you get it started... The icon of your zip disc should appear in the window below the icons. If it is a PC disc, the icon is ugly black and white... if it is a Mac disc, the icon is gray, white and red.

3. Select the ERASE DISC option from the row of icons lined up on the Zip Tools window... (its the one with the pencil eraser). A dialog box will come up asking you if you really want to erase or reformat the disc. Click yes, and choose the Macintosh option if there is one. Give your Zip disc a name.

4. Click OK.

5. The Zip Disc will reformat itself in about 15 seconds. Remember that if you have data on the Zip disc it will be erased. So be careful! Note that erasing the disc with the SURFACE VERIFY option completely erases the disc and takes several minutes longer.

6. Select the QUIT option from the Zip Tools menu box. The application quits and on your desktop sits a pretty gray, white and red iconed Macintosh zip disc. It is ready to receive your Macintosh data on a correctly formatted disc!

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Copyright 1998-2003 by Melvin Ah Ching Productions.
Last update: February 16,2003.