Nikon Coolscan III LS30 installation trouble

Hello,
Hoping someone here has some experience with this issue...

I just purchased a used Coolscan III LS30. I’ve tried to install on a WinXP SP2 machine and a Win98SE machine. Neither machine sees the scanner (Plug & Play does not initiate). When I try to install the hardware manually Windows rejects any .INF file I point it to (have tried dozens of times). It says the info for my hardware is not there.

On both machines I installed the SCSI host adapter that came with the scanner and I downloaded and installed the current Nikon Scan software version. The software seems to be working properly but I get a message that it is unable to find any active devices. Also, I tried Vuescan which does not find the scanner either. On the both machines I downloaded and installed the necessary ASPI layer.

I don't know what firmware version is currently in the scanner. I have downloaded the latest firmware but cannot install it since my computers don't communicate with the scanner yet.

The scanner came with two scsi cables so have tried them both. The scanner is the only device on this port and I have set the termination to "On", but also tried with "Off" just for good measure. The scanner powers up and makes usual scanner types of starting noises.

Just can't get the machines to find or recognize the scanner so I can install the hardware. Please help! Thanks in advance.

You don't mention if your machine is actually recognizing the SCSI card and scanning it for active devices. Is the SCSI card visible under /Settings/Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager? There should be a 'SCSI and Raid Controllers' icon under your computer. You also will typically see the SCSI card scan it's bus during bootup assuming that you have the PC BIOS set to display all the startup messages.

SCSI devices are not typically plug and play. If I add or power on a SCSI scanner after bootup on my Adaptec controller I have to force a rescan of the SCSI bus.

Nope, I don't see a SCSI card or controller in Device Manager on either machine. And now that you mention it, I happened to notice that a SCSI card WAS listed in the Device Manager of my Win98 machine UNTIL I tried to install the scanner. Do I need to reinstall my SCSI card? And if so - how do I go about doing that?

Could this have something to do with the SCSI Host Adapter software that was supplied by Nikon? Or - the ASPI layer I updated?

Hmm, I did a little digging on the Nikon site. The LS30 did not include a SCSI adapter (it would have been unusual if it did). So that leads me to wonder what adapter you recieved. It should be labeled someplace. I am betting that the adapter is not installed as far as Windows is concerned as you are lacking the drivers. Be aware that many older SCSI adapters are not supported under Windows XP. I had to upgrade to a new Adaptec when I built my current XP machine a few years ago.

Interestingly enough Nikon used to ship this scanner with a card.
Thanks so much for all your help. I have located a scsi card that is both compatible with the scanner and WinXP or Win98 (or so they say). Good news is they are available for very little money on Ebay. Let's hope I won't be back here again after installing this one!
Thanks again!!!

Hi All,
Did LucyI's problem ever get resolved, I have the same problem.
My scanner and scsi card worked fine until I updated from Windows Millenium to Windows XP service pack 2,
It would seem Nikon does not support XP .... can you believe it?
Regards

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LucyI

Hello,
Hoping someone here has some experience with this issue...

I just purchased a used Coolscan III LS30. I’ve tried to install on a WinXP SP2 machine and a Win98SE machine. Neither machine sees the scanner (Plug & Play does not initiate). When I try to install the hardware manually Windows rejects any .INF file I point it to (have tried dozens of times). It says the info for my hardware is not there.

On both machines I installed the SCSI host adapter that came with the scanner and I downloaded and installed the current Nikon Scan software version. The software seems to be working properly but I get a message that it is unable to find any active devices. Also, I tried Vuescan which does not find the scanner either. On the both machines I downloaded and installed the necessary ASPI layer.

I don't know what firmware version is currently in the scanner. I have downloaded the latest firmware but cannot install it since my computers don't communicate with the scanner yet.

The scanner came with two scsi cables so have tried them both. The scanner is the only device on this port and I have set the termination to "On", but also tried with "Off" just for good measure. The scanner powers up and makes usual scanner types of starting noises.

Just can't get the machines to find or recognize the scanner so I can install the hardware. Please help! Thanks in advance.

---

Hi Pastit,
My problem did get resolved on the Win 98 machine, never with XP. So I keep an old laptop around just to use with the scanner - which isn't very often in my case. Not even sure if it will fire up at this point. And it was so long ago I'm afraid I don't remember the exact steps I went through to get it working, but I seem to remember it involved the purchase of a SCSI card for the laptop...
Sorry to not be more help to you!
Lucy

Hi Lucy
Thank you for your prompt reply.
I'm amazed that a company like Nikon won't support SP2 of XP, of course Nikon wants me to buy a new scanner, I hope they don't hold their breath.:rolleyes:
Regards
Chris

Hi lucy, i just purchased a coolscan iii l-30 also, but need a scsi card for my win 98 computer. What scsi card did you actually get for it to work? Model number or exact kind name would be a big help. Thanks so much.... Larr

I'm just installing this scanner and its scsi card. It's an adaptec 2906 PCi SCSI card I got from the seller of the scanner, I'm running XP SP3. XP is using a microsoft driver for the SCSI card, the AIC-7850 driver. It does work with the free version of vuescan I downloaded. With nikon scan I get the "unable to find any active devices" message. Anybody have any ideas? I have seen the advice about using a different scsi driver but it seems to be working with Vuescan so that makes me think that the scsi interface is good. And the adaptec site has no driver to download for XP.

Any help appreciated.
Edward