How to get the Olympus ES10S (SCSI version) to work with Windows XP.

A quick introduction – I bought my ES10S from America on eBay. Knowing that there was no XP driver, I was going to use Win98 to run the ES10S but I set about having a go to make it work with XP myself and here’s how it worked. I’m no expert, perseverance paid off. Firstly a big thanks to Steve Beet, I wouldn’t have known where to start without his pointer.

Here's the scanner in SCSI form.

Hardware

Athlon XP 3000

1GB RAM

Epox XRDA+ motherboard.

Adaptec 2940 PCI SCSI Card

SCSI Cable Centronics CN50 Male - HD50

Adaptec AHA-2940 S76 PCI SCSI Card

XP home, SP2

Please note, I don't know whether this procedure will work with non-Adaptec cards, I obviously haven't had chance to try it.

Drivers

Adaptec card is using XP drivers, Adaptec don’t supply XP drivers for this SCSI card but Microsoft's drivers work. When I first plugged the Scanner into to the PC and switched it on, it found it and placed it as an OLYMPUS ES10_SCSI_SCSI Scanner Device on an Other Devices branch in Device Manager. It asked for drivers, but there aren't any so it will never be able to have any. However, this doesn’t stop it working. In time, it's found its way cleverly onto the Imaging Devices branch, don't ask me how, it just did (still without drivers, hence the yellow exclamation mark.)

Here's my device manager tree with the SCSI card and ES10S

Software

Install the standard Olympus scanner software as supplied with the ES10S.

Getting it to work

You now need what's known as an ASPI layer. Please feel free to Google search ASPI, I haven't got a clue how or why it works! This is a common theme to my effort, but it worked!

The ASPI layer is specific to your SCSI card. My SCSI card is an Adaptec card, therefore I got my ASPI layer from Adaptec's website. Manufacturers of SCSI cards usually have ASPI layers to freely download. If your manufacture doesn't, all is not lost. It may be that your card is badged up with another manufacturers chip on it - do some searching.

In the case of Adaptec, you can download this by going to Adaptec's website, clicking on support, click on knowledgebase, click Find Answers in your native tongue then search for "ASPI". I don't want to put a link to it because during my trawling of the web, many people had linked to it and it was generally a dead link, notably because Adaptec keep moving it! In amongst the results, there's an option to download ASPI 4.71.2 (or higher as time goes by). Follow the instructions then use the ASPI check program to see if you've got the ASPI layer installed. Mine looks like this :-

Adaptec's ASPI layer program showing the drivers have been installed

Now that's all there is to it at this point. To get the ES10S to work it was necessary for me to reboot. Note: The Scanner must be switched on before booting up my PC. Again, don't know why but it doesn't work if you boot the PC then switch the scanner on afterwards. When booting up with the scanner on, the pre-XP boot screens show the device like this :-

My Adaptec 2940 finds the ES10S scanner before Windows XP boots up

Now XP has booted, I can use the scanner as if it was always meant to have worked with XP. Start -> Programs -> Olympus Scanner -> Olympus ES10 SCSI ver 2.0

Here I click PREVIEW, the ES10S is recognised.

ES10S is working using the supplied software

Here is the preview :-

Once previewed, I scanned at full screen size. Here is the software capturing the image.

An that's about all there is to it. Please feel free to ask me any questions about this. I've tried to illustrate what I did as I went along. The ES10S is fantastic, I'm delighted with it and there's a mountain of 35mm's waiting to be stored on my C drive. Everything works as required, including focus adjustment. The results are stunning and the speed of scan using SCSI is incredible.

Again, thanks to all those websites out there who've helped me towards sorting this out. If there's anything technically incorrect in what I've written, please don't tell me off because although I'm determined and above average in terms of PC literacy, I'm no expert and can't help you with things like ASPI layers, SCSI buses etc.

*** VISTA UPDATE ***

I had a communication from a lady called Constantine. She told me that she'd been to Adaptecs website and they were not going to release an ASPI layer for Vista. However, all was not lost. See below. If you do come across this problem with Vista, my advice would be to try and find a new SCSI card which has Vista drivers and an ASPI layer. Failing that, see the email from Constantine below...

Dear Darren

Thank you for your email. As a matter of fact, I tried installing the ASPI driver  4.71 Alpha 2, the last version of 2002,  with compatibility checked for XP SP2 and , what do you know ! It works and my ES-10s is working as usual.

So the little film scanner will  still be around for some time..

Best Regards

Constantine

Darren Kelly (UK)

es10@dkdb.co.uk