64-Bit Drivers for Legacy SCSI Cards and Adapters

For whatever reason, there are still a fair number of users out there that may have legacy (read “old”) SCSI adapters in their systems.  With the introduction of technologies such Firewire, SATA, PCI-e, and USB 3.0, all of which are (1) much faster; (2) have much larger bandwidth, and (3) provide much more functionality, the old SCSI bus standard is certainly on its last legs.  The fact that it still survives in today’s landscape (when it should have already gone the way of the serial and parallel ports) is a testament to the durability of the technology that was introduced in 1986.  SCSI is currently only popular on high-performance workstations and servers.  RAIDs on servers still often use SCSI hard disks, though a number of manufacturers now offer SATA-based RAID systems as a cheaper option.  Really, the only reason that SCSI adapters are still found on any systems today is because of the legacy hardware that those few die-hard users refuse to let go. 

Yes, I am one of those sad people.  Zip disks have long lost their usefulness.  Starting with the CD/DVD re-writables and, especially, after the USB drives became ubiquitous, Zip disks quickly became obselet.  I recognize this.  Yet, when the 100 MB (and then 250 MB and 750 MB) zip disk were king, I put zip drives in all our computers.  And I used them… a lot.  My wife still has a lot of her old manuscripts and drafts backed up on a ton of Zip disks.  Yes, I know we can simply go through and burn then onto a DVD-R, but we just simply have not had the motivation to undertake that large project.  There was never a pressing need since the Zips only contained backup copies and we, thankfully, have never had such a catastrophe that we had to go find the backups on the Zips.  This is also one minor convenience the zip drives have that I still enjoy.  As most new motherboards no longer come with a floppy connection option for floppy drives, the internal Zip drives (both parallel and SCSI versions) are a great way to enable a boot disk option.  I have used the Zip drives for such emergencies in the past.

Anyway, long story short, when we upgraded to Windows7 64-Bit on my wife’s computer, I could not find any drivers for her old internal SCSI ZIP drive.  The Zip drive, itself, did not need any drivers as Windows recognizes it as a removable media drive.  The Adaptec AVA-2904 SCSI adapter that I’ve had since the late 90’s was the problem.  A quick search of Adaptec’s website quickly told me that Adaptec did not have any 64-Bit drivers for this adapter (in any version of Windows).  A little research led me to a helpful forum post here.  This involves using a hacked version of drivers for "Adaptec AIC-7870 PCI SCSI Controller (Emulated)" driver for Vista 64-bit.  These drivers, once modded, appear to work on the AVA-2904 and several other Adaptec SCSI adapters.  The instruction are posted further in the post.  If you read through the post, there is a link to download the files and instructions on what to modify in the "inf" file.  I have gone ahead and modified the files and uploaded it here for convenience.

Remember, you will need to have “admin” privileges to install these drivers and it’s recommend that disable UAC before starting.  I always have it off, but you can certainly re-enable UAC after installation is completed, if you feel naked without your UAC.  You will need to manually install these drivers and Win7 will not automatically pick them up even when you point it to the correct folder.  Read the instructions in the forum link provided earlier.  If you still can’t get it to work, let me know and I may be able to help you out.  Good luck.