Scanners and Windows 2000

[Eric Gisin]

There are problems with bus mastering ISA and certain chipsets that show up
under Win 2K but not Win NT. I got myself PCI SCSI 4 years ago.

 

[Tony]

Hi,

I'm having some troubles with my scanners...

HW setup:
PC + Adaptec 1542CF + Adaptec 2904
Acer (now BenQ) ScanWit 2720S Filmscanner
Microtek Phantom 336 Flatbed
Both scanners connected to the 1542CF, film scanner first, then flatbed.
then terminator.

Both working flawlessly when I run with WinNT 4.0 (SP6a).
Apparently there is no HW problem (?).

However...
running W2k SP4 I can't get them to work properly.
Both devices are detected properly and I installed the latest
drivers.

But when I try to scan anything (no matter which scanner) they
start doing so, e.g. the film scanner is focussing, but after a while
the procedure stops and some time later I get a timeout and the scnner
isn't recognised anymore. After a power cycle the scanner regains
consciousness and I can again start scanning but it hangs at the same
step as before.

What I've tried so far:

*) Removed all TWAIN drivers
*) Removed all SW that uses ASPI (surprisingly many)
*) Tried about a half dozen different ASPI layers
*) Tried TWAIN dll's from twain.org
*) Removed one scanner (tried each) from SCSI chain

And of course I have installed/uninstalled the drivers at all stages
and rebooted every time. Also I made sure that when uninstalling the
files really disappear (quite often there are leftovers) and that the
registry is clean (?).

The SCSI drivers in my system are aha154x.sys and aic78xx.sys (both from
the W2k CD)I have re-installed these from the CD as well, but the files
were identical and - of course - it didn't help any.

And yes, I've tried Vuescan. Same story...

I'm runnig out of ideas.

Suggestions anyone?

<sigh>

Tony

 

[Dave]

First, I'm no expert in this area; the following is my PERSONAL experience
with ASPI and Win2K (Folkert take note):

I had similar problems writing to my CD writer using programs that require
ASPI under Win2K...

Win2k does not use the ASPI layer and does not (officially) support its'
use, and installing it (ASPI) gives hit-or-miss results. I found that I can
use the aspi driver under *certain* circumstances... under other
circumstances it hangs my bus. Apparently there is some conflict with the
aspi layer whatever newer protocol/transport/whatever Win2K uses...

Here's some unverified info I found in another post that seemed relevant:

 

[Mac McDougald]

First, I'm no expert in this area; the following is my PERSONAL experience
with ASPI and Win2K (Folkert take note):

I had similar problems writing to my CD writer using programs that require
ASPI under Win2K...

Note that ASPI for Win2K has been updated at least twice in last few
years. When W2K came out, you had to use the version that still worked on
Win95 also.

Now there have been 2 or 3 versions that are specifically for XP/W2K.
They also work on 98/98SE/Me also, if one needs an update.

If you are already using latest, 4.7something, disregard.


Mac

 

[Tony]

As you can see I have a PCI card in my system as well which serves
6 devices (disks, CD/DVD/ZIP drives). I have already swapped the
two cables. That causes some reconfiguration to make all the
disks work again (drive letters...) but the gain is zero, i.e.the
scanners behave on the PCI card the same as on the ISA.

Regards,

Tony

 

[Tony]

Maybe I should give a list of my ASPI trials...

1) The one that came with W2k
I've checked the service packs. There is no update for these.
2) Adaptec v4.6
3) Adaptec v4.7 alpha 2 (anybody has any newer?)
4) Nero v2.0.1.45
5) LSI v1.7.1
6) ACARD (came with film scanner driver)

They do not all behave the same way.
Some do not generate the pop-up error message (timeout) but rather
cause the program to hang.
The error code also seems to vary with different ASPI layers.
Nero is definitely the "best" because it doesn't even detect any scanners...

BTW: scsi configurations are detected nicely with a tool called
"aspi_you" I found somewhere on the internjet.

Regards,

Tony

 

[Mr. Chuck]

The latest drivers for the Benq do not work, I opened a ticket with Benq and
they told me to revert to the original drivers ver. 3.40 and the scanner
works fine.

MrC

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

First, I'm no expert in this area; the following is my PERSONAL experience
with ASPI and Win2K (Folkert take note):

I had similar problems writing to my CD writer using programs that require
ASPI under Win2K...

Win2k does not use the ASPI layer

Neither does any other Windows.

[snip]

 

[Rubens]

Dave wrote:

(snip)

Win2k does not use the ASPI layer and does not (officially) support its'
use, and installing it (ASPI) gives hit-or-miss results. I found that I can
use the aspi driver under *certain* circumstances... under other
circumstances it hangs my bus. Apparently there is some conflict with the
aspi layer whatever newer protocol/transport/whatever Win2K uses...

I really don´t know what to say upon that,
because my scanner runs perfectly under
Win2k with ASPI. Anyway here goes my
system configuration, if it can help:

Win2K SP4
Adaptec ASPI 4.60 (1021)

HP ScanJet 4c scanner connected to
Adaptec 1542CF ISA SCSI controller

Asus P3C-LS motherboard (with embedded Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra160 SCSI controler)

2 Plextor SCSI CD-RW drives
2 Seagate SCSI Cheetah HDs

Just two notes:

1- Adaptec´s "ASPI Check" utility reports
my OS as WinNT instead of Win2K.

2- The scanner does not works properly if
connected to the SE segment of motherboard´s
SCSI controller bus.

Good luck,

Rubens

 

[Mac McDougald]

Neither does any other Windows.

I assure you than no version of Windows will run a SCSI scanner withOUT
ASPI.

Mac

 

[Tony]

What drivers are you talking about?

The latest from BenQ are v2.01 and the ones on the CD are v1.1.
I also tried v2.0 which I happened to have somewhere.
All three of them fail in the same way.

Are you confusing the ScanWit 2720S with another model?

Regards,

Tony

 

[Eric Gisin]

I assure you than no version of Windows will run a SCSI scanner withOUT
ASPI.

Sure it will. Scanner drivers are imaging miniports, or WDM drivers that use
SCSI pass-through. Neither use APSI nor implement TWAIN.

Of course if you have an ancient scanner it may not have Win 2K/XP drivers.

 

[Mac McDougald]

Sure it will. Scanner drivers are imaging miniports, or WDM drivers that use
SCSI pass-through. Neither use APSI nor implement TWAIN.

Of course if you have an ancient scanner it may not have Win 2K/XP drivers.

Well, so you say.
Drivers allow OS to see the scanner, but it just won't work without ASPI
(which was included in Win9x)
Can assure you that "ancient" scanner like Nikon 2000 will not work
without ASPI in W2K or XP, even though there is W2K/XP compatible
versions of NikonScan. Since there are few (if any) SCSI scanners still
being produced, I'd like to hear from anyone who is running one withOUT
ASPI on system (I'd wager that ASPI is included in the installation CD
for them).

Mac

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I assure you

Well that is your problem.
So you are saying that no SCSI scanner will support TWAIN?

than no version of Windows will run a SCSI scanner withOUT ASPI.

Windows does not "run" scanners.
Windows itself does not use ASPI (nor TWAIN).
ASPI (and TWAIN) are programming interfaces used by programs.

 

[Mr. Chuck]

Sorry, wrong model...

MrC.

What drivers are you talking about?

The latest from BenQ are v2.01 and the ones on the CD are v1.1.
I also tried v2.0 which I happened to have somewhere.
All three of them fail in the same way.

Are you confusing the ScanWit 2720S with another model?

Regards,

Tony

 

[Mac McDougald]

Well that is your problem.
So you are saying that no SCSI scanner will support TWAIN?


Windows does not "run" scanners.
Windows itself does not use ASPI (nor TWAIN).
ASPI (and TWAIN) are programming interfaces used by programs.

Thanks for the precise definition, but point is still that SCSI scanner
won't work without ASPI in the Windows environment.

Mac

 

[Eric Gisin]

No, your unsupported scanner does not have Win 2K/XP drivers.

 

[Wayne Fulton]

No, your unsupported scanner does not have Win 2K/XP drivers.

If we are speaking of any actual SCSI consumer scanners (and this thread
was), then of course anyone with a SCSI scanner knows that Mac is correct.
SCSI consumer scanners absolutely do require ASPI in XP to work.

It is true that W2K/XP does provide an alternate Microsoft SCSI API, and
SCSI hard disk drivers and SCSI CD drivers do use it instead of ASPI. The
idea is then they can no longer bypass Windows security to access system
protected disk files, which is why Microsoft discouraged ASPI.

I suppose your point was that the scanner driver **could** have been
rewritten that way too. My point is that it wasnt. Consumer scanners
simply didnt do it, and they do still require ASPI if you want them to
work in XP. Actually consumer scanners instead abandoned SCSI and
converted to Firewire, etc.

The commerical 10-20 ppm class of office document scanners largely stayed
with SCSI so far, and generally use ISIS instead of TWAIN, and I'd guess
ISIS probably no longer uses ASPI, to keep Microsoft happy.

But SCSI consumer scanners still require ASPI, and this is the first thing
to know to make a SCSI scanner work in XP.

 

[Mac McDougald]

No, your unsupported scanner does not have Win 2K/XP drivers.

Please name one SCSI scanner (film/flatbed/combo) that runs on 2K/XP
without ASPI.

I'm sure if you ran aspichk.exe on that puter, you would find ASPI
installed, however it got there (apparantly from the installation CD that
came with the scanner if user didn't do it separately).

Mac
==================

 

[Mac McDougald]

The

idea is then they can no longer bypass Windows security to access system
protected disk files, which is why Microsoft discouraged ASPI.

Thought it was a licensing thing between MS and Adaptac that left it out
of W2K and XP? Or fact that Adaptec didn't have an updated version ready,
or combo of both?

Mac