I recently bought a second hand PowerMac G4 with an adaptec 2903B scsi PCI card in it. I reinstalled it with OS10.3.9. I have not been able to detect any SCSI devices yet. Am I missing a driver ? No drivers for the 2903B on the Adaptec website... I'm using it with OSX, but would like to use it also in OS9 with the MESA software for my AKAI S2000 sampler.
MESA runs in OS9/Classic. It runs fine, but it cannot open the Akai Sampler. So I suspect that MESA tries to find the sampler on the SCSI card through OS9, and has no extension or driver for this ? And there is no driver for Adaptec 290X in OS9 available as far as I can see, only for OSX. Or is my theory wrong ? I do have the SCSI Plug for the sampler from AKAI.
This is an Apple users forum. Your question can be answered on a Mesa or Akai user forum or by their tech support. Sorry, I think your theory is wrong in that the Adaptec scsi card only allows for the use of attached scsi devices, it will not provide any connectivity software, only lets you connect your scsi device.
I use one of these cards with OSX which includes many drivers. However to connect a legacy HP Scanjet scanner I had to go to HP and untimately to independant sofeware to connect.
OK then let me reformulate the question : if the application that uses the Adaptec SCSI card runs in Classic under OSX, is it then necessary to have the 'drivers' for the Adaptec card in the OS9 'extensions' folder (knowing that OSX supports the Adaptec card) ?
If the answer is YES, then which driver should I use and where can I find it ? If the answer is NO, then my SCSI card is probably not functioning... Sorry for insisting.
Adaptec or who ever made the RAID software would have the driver for OS 9. I don't have Classic/OS9 installed on my computer. I don't rember whether all drivers appear in the extensions folder.
I'll check with Adaptec, myself, and let you know.
OK some answers:
YES it shows up in the system profiler, as :
pci9004,7850:
Type: SCSI Bus Controller
Bus: PCI
Slot: SLOT-D
Vendor ID: 0x9004
Device ID: 0x5078
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x9004
Subsystem ID: 0x7850
Revision ID: 0x0003
and YES I'm sure about the 2903B indication on the card. Thanks already for the efforts.
Extra information :
- the SCSI card works under OSX (I can control a LaCie CDRom drive with it)
- I have added the Adaptec 2906 driver to the extensions folder, it does not help.
- I have tried giving my sampler SCSI number 3 instead of 6, does not help.
paul
OK I found it !
Found the driver on Driverguide.com.
(strange, I could swear that this driver was not there last week !).
I created an OS9.2.2 startup HD on a separate HD - so without OSX.
Installed the driver, installed MESA straight from the AkaiPro website and... it works ! So I have full control over my Akai S2000 sampler via MESA.
Then I also installed the driver on the other HD where OSX is running. Installed it in the OS9/Extensions folder and wanted to install it also in the Extensions on the OSX System folder. Came a message 'installation was not necessary'. Result: it still does NOT work in Classic under OSX. Why not ? The PCI card appears on the System Profiler, but with nothing connected to it.
I'll keep looking for clues.
I suspect when booting natively in OS9, your device software is compatible with the OS9 scsi card extension and all is well.
However, when booting in OSX, the OSX scsi driver takes over, finds the card OK, however, OS9, running in Classic emulation within OSX, doesn't see the card.
I have the same situation with my old scsi-based Apple scanner & Adaptec card in my G4 ... the original Apple-One-Scanner software cannot find the scsi card except when natively booting to OS9. The only OSX work-around to use the Apple scanner was to purchase a $50 shareware scanner driver specifically written for OSX. With that, my old Apple Scanner lives.
Bottom line ... if it was not for stubborn determination to ge the scanner to work under OSX, the econonics would have had me put the shareware $ towards a new scanner.
