Adaptec SCSI card 2903b "This system does not contain any Parallel SCSI devices"

[CasinosG4]

I've just acquired an Adaptec 2903b SCSI card so I can borrow an old Nikon Coolscan to scan my transparencies into my G4 which will effectively become mainly a photographic resource.

Checking out the G4 system, the Parallel SCSI section gives the message "This system does not contain any Parallel SCSI devices" with the 2903b, although with a 2906 card it recognises both the card and the scanner.

I've uninstalled the driver several times and checked the seating of the card, and afterwards reinstalled the Adaptec 2906 driver as it seems to be what Adaptec suggest when I search for a 2903 driver.

i am getting the impression that the card is too old to work with 10.5.8 and is effectively scrap for my purposes. Could anyone confirm that or should I persevere trying to get it to work, in which case some suggestions would be appreciated. It's New Old stock, if you know what I mean, so I suppose it could actually just be faulty.

I know it would be easier just to stick with the 2906, but that belongs in the G4 the Nikon is usually connected to, so that isn't an option as none of them belong to me.

Thanks

[Király]

CasinosG4 <dmars...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Checking out the G4 system, the Parallel SCSI section gives the
> message "This system does not contain any Parallel SCSI devices" with
> the 2903b, although with a 2906 card it recognises both the card and
> the scanner.

The knowledgeable and helpful folks at comp.sys.mac.vintage may be able
to help you with this one.

--
K.

Lang may your lum reek.

[Laszlo Lebrun]

Hi grand-grand-pa,
didn't you have such a a card in the previous century?
;-)

You may get more help on c.s.m.vintage...

On 05.03.2014 20:11, CasinosG4 wrote:
> I've just acquired an Adaptec 2903b SCSI card so I can borrow an old Nikon Coolscan to scan my transparencies into my G4 which will effectively become mainly a photographic resource.
>

--
One computer and three operating systems, not the other way round.
One wife and many hotels, not the other way round ! ;-)

[ErikRS]

The AHA-2903B and AVA-2903B are not supported at all in systems higher
than 10.4.6 - and this only if you have upgraded upon an existing OS X
10.3. In this case the original driver will be left in the system. From
10.4.7 and up the driver will be removed and the 2906 will be installed
as the only driver. This driver is the generic driver for 2903B and
2906, but I've never succeeded getting it to work in a G4 - works fine
in at B&W G3 running 10.3.x and 10.4.6.

The smallest card that will work with 10.4.7 to 10.5.8 is the AHA-2930CU
or AVA-2930. The best SCSI card for 10.4.11 to 10.5.8 is the Adaptec
AHA-2940U2B or AHA-2940UW. - I have a 2940U2B in my MDD running both OS
9.2.2, 10.4.11 and 10.5.8 - all bootable systems.

Do remember that the SCSI unit must be powered on before starting up the
computer - else it won't be registered in the system - unless you have
Silverlining 6.4.x for OS X (meant for 10.3.x and 10.4.x, but works also
with 10.5.8).

Note: The dual-firmware Mac/Win "Adaptec AHA-2940U2W Special Edition"
/might/ work in 10.5.x, but I've only had troubles with this card on
both a G4 QuickSilver Dual 1,8ghz and myh 1,25ghz MDD. Therefore I
'downgraded' to the AHA-2940U2B...

Cheers, Erik Richard

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <mac-d...@MOVEstofanet.dk>
NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com
Openoffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[bi...@mix.com]

CasinosG4 <dmars...@gmail.com> writes:

> I've just acquired an Adaptec 2903b SCSI card so I can borrow
> an old Nikon Coolscan to scan my transparencies into my G4 which
> will effectively become mainly a photographic resource.
>
> Checking out the G4 system, the Parallel SCSI section gives the
> message "This system does not contain any Parallel SCSI devices"
> with the 2903b, although with a 2906 card it recognises both the
> card and the scanner.

The 2903B will definitely work with the as-distributed OS 10.3,
and possibly 10.4. The driver is identical in both OS versions.
I'm not sure what happened with all this on 10.5, other than many
major changes were made.

If it doesn't work on 10.4, you'll have to dump it (Adaptec's)
driver (don't let the OS load it, anyway) and, if that doesn't
"just work," lightly patch the Apple 'generic' SCSI driver
(Adaptec78XX kernel extension).

First, with the 2903B card installed, launch the Terminal program
and issue this command -

ioreg -l >ioreg.txt

This will dump lots of data into a text file named ioreg.txt.
Open this with a text editor and search for "ADPT" - you're
looking for something like (2930 shown as an example, don't
have a 2903 handy) -

ADPT,2930CU@12 <class IOPCIDevice, registered, matched, active, busy 0, retain count 14>

Some lines below that you'll see a line that says -

"IOPCIMatch" = "0x50789004 0x78509004"
^^^^^^^^^^

Now, open this with a text or plist editor (you should probably work
on a copy, then save another original and copy the patched file back
as root (sudo cp ..)) -

/System/Library/Extensions/Adaptec78XXSCSI.kext/Contents/Info.plist

And first add the name you hit upon above to this array -

<key>IONameMatch</key>
<aarray>
<string>ADPT,3950U2B</string>
<string>ADPT,2940U2B</string>
<string>ADPT,2930CU</string>
<string>ADPT,2930U</string>
<string>ADPT,2940U2W</string>
<string>ADPT,2940UW</string>
</array>

Then scroll down a bit and look at this -

<key>IOPCIMatch</key>
<string>0x00789004&amp;0x00ffffff 0x78009004&amp;0xff00ffff 0x00109005&amp;0xfff0ffff</string>
^^^^^^^^^^

And patch it to match what ioreg is reporting.

> i am getting the impression that the card is too old to work
> with 10.5.8 and is effectively scrap for my purposes. Could
> anyone confirm that

Apple dropped a lot of SCSI support (or Adaptec did by not
updating its own drivers) in 10.4. 10.5 has ACard drivers,
and ATTO, but I have not tried either of those. It won't
be easy to find PCI versions of them now (try Ebay).

Maybe you can make the computer dual boot, if the scanner
software will run on 10.4 or 10.3. This has been a rather
big pain for me, so I still have two 10.3.9 systems. Heh.

Billy Y..
--
sub #'9+1 ,r0 ; convert ascii byte
add #9.+1 ,r0 ; to an integer
bcc 20$ ; not a number

[CasinosG4]

Thanks to everybody, even the grandchild, for all of those suggestions, which I'll work my way through as and when I have the patience and mood to do battle with the system. Both the G4s have dual internal hard disks, so I suppose dedicating one of those to an older os x system and then booting up in that system to use the scanner is a possibility. I could even see if there's an OS 9 system that I could install, although even when I got the machine new I never started it in OS 9, and I suspect I canned it to release disk space. My G4 has long been replaced for day to day use by a MacBook so the real reason for having 10.5 is to have w working browser.

[CasinosG4]

Success with 2903b and OS X. Thanks to everyone.

Deleted and uninstalled the Adaptec 2906 driver. Opened System Preferences, and rebooted it in 10.4.11 from the original HDD. System profiler now shows a SCSI domain and the scanner.

So 10.4, no adaptec driver seems to be the secret.

I'll still keep hunting for a 10.5 solution tho.

The 2903b was bundled with a series of film scanners including Minolta, Microtek and I think Canon, but not of course for the Nikon and they show OS X downloads to use with a 2903b. I'll investigate whether loading these might cause the card to be recognised in 10.5.

Thanks everyone for then other suggestions which `I'll work through

[bi...@mix.com]

CasinosG4 <dmars...@gmail.com> writes:

> I'll still keep hunting for a 10.5 solution tho.

If you find one, please post it here.

> The 2903b was bundled with a series of film scanners
> including Minolta, Microtek and I think Canon, but not
> of course for the Nikon and they show OS X downloads
> to use with a 2903b. I'll investigate whether loading
> these might cause the card to be recognised in 10.5.

Take a look at VueScan - http://www.hamrick.com
First class software in every possible way, and
that includes the way it's supported.

As for a web browser for 10.5 on the G4, here's
what I'd call the very best -

http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/