VOGONS

Desperately Seeking SCSI Driver

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First post, by Guide42

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In response to an ultimatum from the wife, I am purging some of my ancient hardware.

I unearthed a box containing 6 or 7 external SCSI disc drives. All told they probably total about 40 GB of capacity and weigh about 1 pound per GB.
I have not accessed these drives in about 25 years, and I decided I should at least glance at their contents before jettisoning them.

That decision has set me on a tortured path of discovery.

At the bottom of a drawer, I uncovered an ancient Adaptec SCSI Controller card:

  • Dell-branded Adaptec AHA-2940W/2940UW SCSI controller
    • Chipset: AIC-7880 / AIC-78xx family
    • Driver family: Adaptec AIC-78XX PCI SCSI Controller

This is the classic 2940UW controller card - not U2W, not 29160, not 29320.

I have three old desktop computers, and this card fits in only one of them: a Dell Dimension 8250 which hadn't been powered on since about 2013.

After replacing the CMOS backup battery, and setting the system clock, it amazed me by booting right up to the Windows login screen. And I further amazed myself by remembering my password!

After a bunch of churning, I finally arrived at the Windows Desktop, and Man, is that system SLOW!
It is running Windows Vista Ultimate (Service Pack 2), which very kindly informed me that I need to install a driver for the SCSI controller. 🙁

That's much easier said than done!
I'm told that the driver I need is: Adaptec AIC-78xx Windows Driver (XP/2000) as this is the only driver that supports the 2940UW controller.

So, I have the disc drive. I have the controller. I have the data cable to connect them. The disc is spun up and whirling. The OS is booted up and logged in. All I need is the driver!

Evidently I need: Adaptec AIC-78xx Windows 2000/XP Miniport Driver v4.71.2 (32-bit)

I have search unsuccessfully in the following locations:

No joy! 🙁

Can someone PLEASE point me to where I can download this driver?

Many thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.

Reply 1 of 6, by weedeewee

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I can't help you with the driver.
I would've assumed that Vista would have the drivers included for such a widely used & available scsi card.

I guess you could try this one for Windows 2008 32 bit https://www.driverscloud.com/en/services/GetI … -x86-v605457exe
or this which says it's for vista https://www.driverscloud.com/en/services/GetI … -x86-v605456exe
nevermind, it mentions Ultra2 in the INF
overlooked the other inf file...

Last edited by weedeewee on 2026-04-18, 08:39. Edited 3 times in total.

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Reply 3 of 6, by vetz

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Sometimes searching on filename is alot easier, many mirrors of it. I find it very strange that XP device drives are not included in the OS? They definitely should for 2940UW, so to me I'd check again your OS installation.

https://ftp.braindrainlan.nu/Programs/Runtime … /aspi_471a2.exe

Btw, I very soon will have my Adaptec archive online, as I did a scrape of their site in 2024 before they nuked everything (I don't have all the files, but most of them)

Last edited by vetz on 2026-04-18, 08:49. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 4 of 6, by Errius

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I have a AHA-2940AU card which I got working with Windows 7 32-bit using the aic78xx_aic78u2_vista_x86_v605456.exe driver package.

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 5 of 6, by wierd_w

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I will hunt for it, if you give me the device's VEN_XXX&DEV_XXX numbers.

Reply 6 of 6, by Matth79

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***.driverscloud.com/en/services/GetInformationDriver/23210-50095/adaptec-aic78xx-aic78u2-vista-x86-v605456exe
A "Vista" driver, but " Caution: If you currently run Windows XP with the embedded AIC78xx or AIC78U2 driver and plan to do an in-place upgrade from XP to Windows Vista, please update the AIC78xx or AIC78U2 driver in XP with this Vista driver first. Then do the upgrade from XP to Vista." - so seems like this is also an XP driver

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