Photoclubalpha

In 2000 I bought a Minolta Scan Elite (has ICE) film scanner -- produces 10mp files. (It replaced a Minolta Scan Dual film scanner that I bought in 1999 -- produced 8mp files and that replaced an HP Photosmart film scanner that I bought in 1998 -- produced 8mp files.) I have been using Vuescan since it was a beta version 0.7 command line program in 1998.

I still have the Scan Elite, but it uses a SCSI interface. I had (or maybe still have it somewhere) an Adaptec SCSI IDE card that I used on an old desktop PC. Later I bought an Adaptec SCSI PCMCIA card that I could put in an old WinXP notebook PC. As most of you probably know, notebook computers these days no longer have a PCMCIA card slot. That means that, unfortunately, I no longer have a way to use my Scan Elite scanner. The scanner is still in wonderful condition and still works fine. I haven't used it much in the last 10 years since I started using digital cameras, but a couple of years ago I booted up the old WinXP notebook (Athlon, 512mb, 40gb hd) and scanned a few slides. Sadly, that notebook PC isn't working so well anymore and it is just a matter of time before it dies.

Does anyone have any experience using a USB-to-SCSI adapter with a scanner? Other ideas?

I have a ton of old slides and negatives that I would like to go through and scan. In 2000 I spent 6 months doing high resolution scans of a couple thousand, but I have many more, especially old ones of friends, family, etc., that I would like to get scanned.

I was just on a website last week that listed USB to SCSI adapters as End Of Life. They do list a Firewire to SCSI adapter as current. Can't remember right now what website that was, but they had adapters for CF to SD, and that's how I saw the others.

Dusty

Dusty wrote:I was just on a website last week that listed USB to SCSI adapters as End Of Life. They do list a Firewire to SCSI adapter as current. Can't remember right now what website that was, but they had adapters for CF to SD, and that's how I saw the others.

Sorry, somehow I missed your response. I don't have the scanner and slides/negatives here with me in Hawaii so there is nothing I can do at the moment. It would be sad if my perfectly good and adequate scanner should become unusable because of the interface.

I also have a Minolta Scan Elite and am able to get it to work on my Windows 7 x64 desktop using the original adaptec card. This requires googleing for the Vista driver for this card (The file is called aic78xx_aic78u2_vista_x86_v605456.exe) and using Vuescan.

Of course, this requires a desktop with a free PCI slot, and isn't free (Vuescan costs between $40 and $80 depending on the version), but it works very well.

Eiffel wrote:I also have a Minolta Scan Elite and am able to get it to work on my Windows 7 x64 desktop using the original adaptec card. This requires googleing for the Vista driver for this card (The file is called aic78xx_aic78u2_vista_x86_v605456.exe) and using Vuescan.

Of course, this requires a desktop with a free PCI slot, and isn't free (Vuescan costs between $40 and $80 depending on the version), but it works very well.

Thanks for the info! I bought Vuescan many years ago and was using it even when it was still a beta (command line program at that time) in 1998. I still use Vuescan even now when I want to use one of the many Vuescan 64-bit (RGBI) raw scan files that I saved years back when I did a lot of scanning.

I doubt if I still have the SCSI card since it has been about 10 years since I last saw it and I have moved a several times since then -- may have even been accidentally left in an old desktop pc that I gave away years ago. I have been using a notebook pc (upgrade about every 18-24 months) for the last decade and don't even have a desktop pc. I am wondering if anyone has any experience using these USB-to-SCSI adapters since it seems like that is probably my only option?