[peterrex]

Well here I am again. This time it's the scanner. I can't get the system to recognize it as present. It's on an Adaptec 7850 SCSI card and has never given me any trouble, I've had it for a while and it has run under Windows XP. Is this my failure to install the right drivers? Is it the new motherboard? Is it a conflict with the SATA? Were oh where have I gone astray? The scanner is a basic Microtec Scanmaster X6el model and I have this Scansuite software that I have installed a million times successfully. Now it won't recognize the scanner as present and I suspect this is some obscure (to me) SCSI and driver related issue. Whats the consensus here?

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Is the adaptec card being recognised OK in windows?

[Samm]

Is the adaptec card being recognised OK in windows?

[peterrex]

In the Device Manager is shows as SCSI and RAID controllers and under that is Adaptec AIC-7850 PCI SCSI Controller The driver version is: 5.1.2600.1106 dated 7?01/2001 it is digital signed by Microsoft Publisher. My attempts to update or troubleshoot lead me no where. Under the settings for IRQ it shows as 19 and says no conflicts. Should I uninstall and reinstall? Or what....

[linuxwannabee]

Hi there, as a former macintosh man, I know a bit about SCSI - also used my old my SCSI equipment on windows PC without problems.

Thinks to check:

Have you more than one device in your SCSI chain - e.g. a scanner and an external hard drive?

Remember, all devices in your SCSI chain have to have a unique SCSI i.d. number (normally 1 - 7, the cpu is always 0).

Also, some older SCSI devices are not self-terminating. Therefore you may need to fit a SCSI terminator on the last device in your chain. If you have an old device which doesn't self terminate, and a newer device which does, try switching their relative positions in the chain around - e.g. newest device is last, oldest device is first.

Also, SCSI is reliable technology, but you should always use quality cables - don't be tempted to use the cheap and cheerful variety that cost a tenner. A quality cable will rush you between £30 and £40 when I last looked, but admittedly, that was in my mac days some time ago!

My Adaptec SCSI adapter was a 2904 CD, the default Windows driver always worked fine for me, so I doubt it's a driver issue.

Summary: check scsi id's, termination, position of peripherals in chain and cables.

Good luck

Linuxwannabee

[Samm]

Linuxwannabee is right except that ID 0 is normall used for the first bootable hard drive on the chain. Setting the scanner to ID 1 or something should be fine.

Also, regarding termination, this depends on whether you have any internal scsi devcies on that card. If you don't, then the card itself must be terminated as well as the scanner. If you do have internal devices, then terminate the last internal device on the chain, terminate the scanner (assuming it's the only external scsi device but don't terminate the card.
(NB a lot of scsi cards have their own termination set to auto so this shouldn't be an issue, but check the jumpers or the scsi bios depending on which the card has).

[linuxwannabee]

Ooops - Samm's right about the scsi id=0, my mistake - reckon I might be going senile, it's been a long time since I stared at a macintosh. Thinking about it, zero was the internal hard drive on the mac, but one of the scsi utilities I used on the mac used to label it as CPU.

Silly really, how can the cpu have a scsi id?! I guess it was lay speak to the fact that it was referring to the internal hard drive, being the first device in the chain. Less likely for the typical pc user unless they've opted for an internal scsi drive. Rather expensive if you wish to boot from it, i.e. requires a more expensive scsi adapter.

Apologies to Peterrex for the misleading info, and thanks to Samm for the correction. Teach me to post techie responses in the middle of the morning

On the subject of the scanner - go to the vendor web site. I had a Umax scanner worked fine on my mac, but not on some versions of Windows. It required some techie fixing, e.g. editing config.sys files etc..

If you said it worked fine previously, was that with the same system configuration - including Windows version, have you installed any significant updates since then?

DaveB - Linuxwannabee

[peterrex]

Thanks so much for all the help. Somehow by uninstalling the scanner software and rearranging the cables, when I reinstalled the software it was able to now see the scanner. I don't know if I had the cables wrong or what. I was at Fry's yesterday and the price of good SCSI cables was enough to make me think of jsut investing in a firewire scanner or something.
I also have a film scanner a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual that is not specifically supported by WinXP, however I've had it working fine before but there is some setting I've overlooked. I get an error message saying that there is no scanner installed. I'm not sure where to go to rearrange the items in the scsi chain, if that is even what I need to do.

This scanner is described in the Device Manager as being a Minolta 2882 SCSI Scanner Device at Bus Number 0, Target ID 5, LUN 0

It appears in Photoshop as a device to import from (along with the now successful Microtek) but my efforts at uninstalling and reinstalling have not worked for it.

Seriously, I do have a lot of materials to scan and I wonder if anyone has any ideas about an efficient way to go. If necessary I will buy another flatbed scanner as this one, though acceptible, is an average home use device. I would like the film scanner to work (which I believe it can) and I would like to know for the future how to install it again so I don't have to ask you guys each time.

[peterrex]

One more thing about the Minolta film scanner. It has four dip switches on the back. I'm wondering if these are the critical settings that are wrong. The flatbed scanner now shows up in the Device Manager as an Imaging Device and the Minolta as a yellow question mark under Other Devices. The SCSI chain is terminated at the Minolta as it has been before when it worked.

[Samm]

The 4 dip switches on the back are most likely to be : 3 switches for ID & 1 for termination. The 3 switch combination should be
000 ID 0
001 ID 1
010 ID 2
011 ID 3
100 ID 4
101 ID 5
110 ID 6
111 ID 7

where 0=off, 1=on. However you would need to know whether the ID dip switches are 1-3 or 2-4.
Alternatively, if it is recognised as ID 5, then you should see the 101 combination in there.

The configuration you need is scsi adapter = ID 7 (default). One scanner with an ID between 1&6,second scanner ID between 1&6 but different to the first scanner.
The last scanner on the chain must be terminated, as must the adapter. The middle scanner must not terminated.
Also, place the last scanner on the chain on the very end of the cable. The other scanner should be on a connector half way between the adapter & the last scanner. The LUN values should all be the same (ie 0).

[Supergeek.dcse]

scsi adapters are relable and some time sclerver anough to tell you if some thing is wrong on boot up if you watch the screen it will find the device like ide if it does nt it prob wont work some time if you reboot com and the unit is external and its power isnt reset it forgets it is there

[peterrex]

So here's the way the swithches are set up on the scsi film scanner. From top to bottom they are numbered 4-3-2-1. The diagram says that switch 4 is the terminator and it is set as on currently. And then 3 is on 2 is off and 1 is on. The label on the back says this equals the setting for #5 in the scsi chain which is the same as you described in your post. This scanner is the last item in the chain. It has the terminator piece filling in the unused port, the cable from the other then runs to the flatbed scanner and the other port on that scanner has a cable that runs to the scsi card in the computer. I have seen in the "probe" from the scsi inside that the flatbed is seen as in the #6 position.
Should the film scanner be seen as #7 since it is the last item? Or what?

[Samm]

So your dip switches are set to 1101.
1 (ON for termination) 101 (ON OFF ON) for ID. Which, as you said, is exactly what I predicted in my last post!

The configuration sounds OK except that the flatbed scanner, in the middle of the cable, should be set to an ID below that of the last device. ie flatbed = 4, minolta = 5 for example. Alternatively, you could physically swap the 2 scanners around leaving the IDs intact, but you would have to terminate the flatbed instead of the minolta.
Don't set either of the 2 scanners to ID 7 as this is normally reserved for the host adapter.

I'm a little unclear on which devices are being detected correctly now. In an earlier post, you said the minolta appears in device manager and the flatbed is detected by the probe. Are both scanners picked up by the probe or not? Also, does the flatbed appear in windows?

[peterrex]

Ok, so as it was before I tried your suggestions: The flatbed was read in the Device Manager list as an Input Device. Under Other Devices was a yellow question mark and the reference to the Minolta scanner. At that time the flatbed was showing up in the My Computer list of devices such as hard drives and DVD players. At that point the termination was on the only port that will take the plug on the Minolta scanner,

I have tried out your suggestions this way: I switched the devices physically by having the cable from the SSI card in the computer run to the Minolta to the port that I can use as the other one has a different type of connection that uses a latch on the plug. Thus the cable from the computer runs to the plug in port and the latch type connector cable runs to the flatbed and the other end plugs into the port labeled SCSI Port 2 and the terminator is in the port labeled SCSI Port 1. I have tried it both ways and it will not recognize the presence of either scanner since trying these alternative setups.
On the back of the flatbed using my magnifying glass I have now seen a small wheel with numbers around the edge and a set-able arrow wheel in the middle set to 6. This seems to be the one place where the settings can be changed. I didn’t see it before as it looks more like a screw hole to my less than perfect vision.

So what about returning the set up to how it was terminating at the Minolta (5) but reset the scanner to (4). Otherwise what are the options? I have the impression that what I see in the Import section of Photoshop is actually a recognition that there is software for the devices present, not actually a recognition of the hardware. The recognition of the hardware seems to be only validated in the Device Manager and the My Computer list. So, what’s the next appropriate thing to try teacher?

[Samm]

I agree with you, set the devices back as they were, terminating with the minolta & set the ID to 4 on the flatbed.
While you're down there with the magnifying glass, just make sure there aren't any other dials/switches/jumpers etc.

Can you tell me the make & model of scsi card you have please?

Also, check in device manager to see if the scsi card is sharing it's IRQ with anything else.

[Samm]

Sorry, just remembered you have already given me the scsi card info. My bad.