Sprintscan 45 in XP?

[monkeymon]

I got myself a cheap Polaroid Sprintscan 45, and I'm wondering is there a way to get this working on windows XP? It's scsi scanner, and windows seems to regonize it and even installs somekind of driver.. vuescan should work with this scanner, but it does nothing.

If there is someone using this on XP, it would be nice to hear how did you got it working.

[Stefan Lungu]

You should be able to make it work the same way I could make the Saphir Ultra work. With a SCSI card and vuescan. I think it is supported. The old SCSI cards are good enough. They are recognised by XP and vuescan does not need anything else.

[Ben Hopson]

If I remember correctly some old SCSI scanners running on XP need to have an ASPI Layer installed on Windows XP for the scanners to work. I had to install the ASPI Layer on a PC when XP was first released to get an old HP 4C to work. Do a search on SCSI scanner Windows XP ASPI Layer and see if you can find something that might help.

Good Luck.

Ben

[Ben Hopson]

This Microsoft article might touch on your problem and offer a link to the ASPI Layer from Adaptec.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300674

[monkeymon]

Thanks for the reply, i actually installed aspi drivers after some googling. But it didn't help... It's weird, as everything seems to be just right. Windows finds the scanner, it installs drivers for it, i have tried the vuescan drivers and the ones that comes with polacolor. And it's still doesn't work.. polacolor & vuescan says there is no scanner present. I'm puzzled!

BTW. sorry about staring a new thread, I just found out there were already a fresh thread about Sprintscan 45

[John T]

Did you turn on your scanner before starting the computer? SCSI devices need to be on for the computer to recognize them.

[gregstidham]

I'm running a Sprintscan 45 (scsi) on XP.

I use Polacolor Insight version 5 and a fairly old Adaptec Scsi PCI card.

Are you using an inline scsi terminator in your scsi chain? Sounds like this could be the cause of your trouble.

[monkeymon]

I have a terminator, but I tried if windows would detect it without the terminator and it does.. so it might have something to do with it.

Did you use the drivers that comes with the polascan 5.0 and are located in "sprintscan drivers" folder?

Nice to hear it actually is possible to get this thing working under xp.

[monkeymon]

Well... the scanner broke so thats that :) ... damn, I was so close...

[monkeymon]

It's seems it was just the fuse, this machine really eats fuses. So i opened it, only to discover the fusebox is of course located under the power socket. But what I also found out was that the mirror pointing up is really dusty/dirty! In the manual, it says the green (ready) light should blink and after that it should stay on. On my scanner it does not blink, it just lights up and stays that way. It does however move the film-carrier to the staring point. I'm wondering is this normal.. could it be that it does not complete the auto test sequence, maybe because of the dim mirror?

I would also still be interested on hearing the exact driver people using this under xp are using.

From the manual :

"Turn on the scanner; the switch is next to the power
connector. The POWER indicator light on the front of the unit
will light, the cold cathode lamp will come on (visible
through the slit on the top of the unit), and the READY indicator
will flash briefly. The scanner will perform a self-test that
lasts for a few seconds. If no problems are detected, the
READY light will stay lit. The cold cathode lamp will also
stay on."

So if people using this scanner could confirm this blink of the green light, it would greatly help me.

Thanks.

[gregstidham]

I had my Sprintscan 45 running years ago daisy chained with a Sprintscan 35 plus, but currently I only run the Sprintscan 45 on SCSI and a Nikon Supercoolscan 5000 which uses USB.

I recently built a new PC and used an AMD processor this time. The SCSI card installed without any trouble from XP. I then installed the Polacolor Insight software and only had it install the drivers for the Sprintscan 45. It worked perfect the first time.

Make sure you have your SCSI chain terminated. Make sure your scanner is powered on before you turn your computer on.

Go online and download the newest version of Polacolor Insight version 5. (which is actually several years old now :) .) Don't use any software CDs that came with the Sprintscan 45. The ones I have that came with my scanner, back when I got it, wont work for me either I found. Only the downloaded software would install for me.

In regards to cleaning. Don't work inside the case with the power on. After un-plugging the scanner, take the lid off and carefully clean the mirror and lens. Your scans will be terrible if you don't. I also tweaked the position of the lens, through trial and error, and made my scans sharper. The scanner really holds its' own in tests I have done against the Imacon 848 and the Epson 750. For an old unit, it isn't half bad.

With regard to display lights. When I power on, the orange light is lit and then the green light comes on without flashing. I will need to check, but the green light flashes only when the scanning carriage is moving or calibrating. I can post later to confirm this when I have the scanner running.

Edit added: I checked my scanner, and the green light comes on without flashing when the scanner is turned on and ready. It stays on and only flashes when a scan is in progress. After the scan is complete, the green light burns steady indicating the scanner is ready for the next job.

[monkeymon]

So my unit seems to do what it is supposed to do. I was a bit puzzled about the manual saying that the green light should flash. I'll continue trying with this polacolor 5.0, i have tried them all.. 3.5 to 5.5... i only got mac software with the scanner and have gone trough the net downloading and trying everything related to this scanner.

I'll get to the mirrors if i get this to work.. i cleaned them a bit, but will need to remove them to clean them properly.

I have a epson 4990 also, but i got this unit really cheaply and hope it could give a little sharper scans. So i could use the epson only for 8x10. I hate using sharpening, actually.. i don't use it at all.

Thanks for you time gregstidham!

[Ivan J. Eberle]

You might also find an old Mac B&W to dedicate to this for dirt cheap. Since all of the earlier ones are natively be happy with SCSI, and since you already have the Mac S/W, etc. and they'd be contemporaries to the SprintScan 45.

Surprising how good the old Mac hardware is considering how little it goes for. Five years ago I bought a Blue and White PowerMac for a C-note and upgraded it to Panther and a G4 chip, still going strong. Circa 1998 machine runs either OSX or Classic, natively. Was the machine to have as one dedicated to drum scanning (indeed, the most advanced of what a few of the older drum scanners require.)

[monkeymon]

I think i'll try to install this again sometime when i re-install windows or get a new computer. It just doesn't seem to work. I relocated my whole winnt\inf directory's content to get my windows to install the right drivers.. but it just won't work.

[Gene McCluney]

I hate using sharpening, actually.. i don't use it at all.
gregstidham!

If you are "not using sharpening at all", then you don't understand how scanners work. Using a controlled amount of unsharp mask is necessary to get a scanned photo to be the same sharpness as the original, otherwise it will not be. All scanners require some "unsharp mask". Some apply this during the scanning process in the scanner software, but most photographers prefer to add this in photoshop.

[monkeymon]

I just understand that i don't like the look of sharpened images. I don't think that some photoshop effect would make my scans same as darkroom print. If the problem is low optical quality of scanners, the scan is missing information and now trick will bring it back.

If i use an inferior optics on my camera, sharpening is not going to get me the same results as good optics. If in the old days, poor optics was the reason for inventing this technique.. now we have poor scanners. I don't use it on darkroom, i don't use it in photoshop.

But i have to emphasis that its mostly the look i dislike. Most people like it, i just dont.. it makes my stomach turn. All in all, it is an effect you add to your image.

[HSPluta]

Hi all,

I hate to bring up a zombie post, especially for my first post here, but I am in the same boat as the OP and it looks as though there was never a final solution.

Can anyone help with getting a SprintScan 45 to work with XP Pro? I am at exactly the same spot as the original poster was, that is, the computer recongnizes the scanner, I have both the Adaptec ASPI and the SprintScan 45 Ultra drivers loaded and neither Polacolor nor Vuescan sees the scanner.

I have a large collection of 4x5 images I really want to get into Photoshop and I know the SprintScan would do a much better job then a flatbed.

Many thanks in advance,
Harry

[JavaDuke]

I got my Sprinscan 45 Ultra working with new iMac with this SCSI-to-Firewire adapter: http://www.ratocsystems.com/english/products/FR1SX.html . Vuescan recognized it without any problem (as long as I remember to turn my scanner on before I turn the computer on).
The same company also makes SCSI-to-USB adapter. I'm pretty sure it will work just fine with XP.