DOS ASPI Driver Installation for Recycle! V1.6 under Windows9x and 3.xx

Note: OS 2.0 for S2000/(CD)3000XL/3200XL is now officially available from AKAI's site and will resolve this problem so upgrade as soon as possible to also use MESA PC! I will leave this section here for the people who still have the old 's' series and no s/w upgrade possibility and want to venture into IT land. I *do not* suggest you "downgrade" to 16bit ASPI drivers under a 32bit OS, especially win9x. If you really need SCSI communication badly, use an old 486/586 with Win3.xx and any DOS version over 5.0 for this process - you can (if you know how) also network the WFW3.11 PC with your win9x machine to xfer and process samples faster. The only application you will be able to run like this with 16bit ASPI drivers is Recycle v1.6 and you MUST have an Adaptec Host Controller!
This is NOT RECOMMENDED under Win9x unless your *really* know what you are doing.

Q) Why isn't my AKAI recognized under Windows95 even if my other SCSI stuff works?
Q) Why do you need a DOS ASPI driver for WIN95 to work with Recycle!, are you nuts?

A) You need a DOS ASPI driver resident to make Recycle! work with your AKAI EVEN under Windows95. This is not because Windows95 doesn't have one, but because the aspi32 driver that win95 loads does *not* recognize your AKAI's host adapter interface on the same SCSI chain; hopefully this bug will be corrected by updating the AKAI O.S. in order to be recognized like a normal device in the chain. There's more to it though: if you just install the DOS ASPI driver and boot into windows95 you'll have a driver conflict - this because you will have loaded first the DOS ASPI driver and then windows95 will have attempted to initialize the aspi32 one "over" the DOS one with no success (the DOS ASPI driver "traps" it's calls and aspi32 cannot bypass them). The solution is that you must DISABLE your host adapter under windows95 in the control panel -> system -> devices tab by clicking on the checkbox in your SCSI adapter key. If you've just inserted your new SCSI card and it's not plug & play (like the Adaptec 1505/10) then you won't see any SCSI key because you haven't launched the installation disk yet so DON'T: in the next section I will explain how to install these files manually. Now that you have disabled the controller, there's still one thing left. There's a little file called "APIX.VXD" under your WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS directory that is still trying to get ASPI communication under win95 so you'll have to get rid of it. I don't think it's a good idea to delete it; just MOVE it to another directory outside the search path so it won't be found by win95. Keep in mind, that without winaspi.dll, aspienum.vxd and the apix.vxd file your windows95 has become lame on device detection and recognition - you've lost the Plug & Play feature on that. So if you leave media in SCSI removable devices or not, windows95 will not recognize them in the same way having no direct access and no help through apix.vxd only through DOS ASPI calls which are quite "limited" for Win95. Relying only on a 16bit ASPI driver, the system performance can be slowed down and Windows95 itself can also become very unstable depending on what you do. Anyway, you can at this point reboot and try Recycle's SCSI scan.

Q) How do I manually install the ASPI DOS drivers?

A) Ok, so if you don't want (or have) the Adaptec's ASPI EZ SCSI Installation Diskette, you can install these drivers manually - it's very straight forward. First of all, copy the ASPI drivers in a subdirectory or create one called ASPI for example. The drivers you need are ASPIxDOS.SYS (the main ASPI driver/interpreter), ASPICD.SYS (for your SCSI CD-ROM) and ASPIDISK.SYS (for your removable DOS formatted media). The 'x' in the ASPIxDOS.SYS is there because there is more than one ASPI driver! Infact, each family of SCSI adapters have their own. In Adaptec's case, there are mainly 4 ASPI drivers: ASPI 2-4-7-8 DOS.SYS. The most common are ASPI2DOS.SYS which works with the adaptec 1505/10/15/20 and ASPI8DOS.SYS which works with the 2940+ family. If you're not sure which one is yours, just try them all untill you get a positive install:). Now, after you have copied these files in your new made directory, insert these lines at the beginning of your CONFIG.SYS. You can achieve this by using a simple DOS editor like EDIT called by the DOS Prompt. I'm assuming your drivers are located in a subdirectory called ASPI:

DEVICE=C:\ASPI\ASPIxDOS.SYS (where 'x' is the right number for your SCSI card)
DEVICE=C:\ASPI\ASPIDISK.SYS (only if you want a DOS removable media mounted)
DEVICE=C:\ASPI\ASPICD.SYS /D:ASPICD001 (only if you want your SCSI CD seen under DOS or Windows)

Now remember that if you have installed the ASPICD.SYS driver you will need to add a line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file too, exactly:

MSCDEX /D:ASPICD001

This installs the MicroSoft CDrom EXtension in order to let DOS get linked by name to your CD-ROM driver, in other words see your CD Drive. Ok, that's it, now you can reboot and check what your installed driver(s) report. You should get a successfull "ASPI Driver installed" followed by a scan of your SCSI bus with next to ID:6 a strange "2" plus a thingy that looks like the male symbol - if your AKAI is powered and connected properly:). Don't panic if you don't see the symbols after the ID:6, not all ASPI drivers report the device name. Now, it's time to check what Recycle! says under windows. If all the above steps have been followed ok, it should find your AKAI during the device scan!

Q) Where do I find an ASPI driver for my type of Host Adapter?

A) If you received your SCSI Host Adaptor in a "kit" it should be in the box, but if you just bought an OEM version (just the hardware) then you have to find the appropriate DOS ASPI driver for your SCSI card; try searching the net you should be able to find them quiet easily.

Q) What an earth IS an ASPI driver, some special sort of GOLF CLUB?

A) No it's not a new hybrid/synthesised/Human Incubated/Mutant Virus! It's the acronym for Advanced SCSI Programming Interface and is needed for your SCSI devices to communicate in a "standard" and appropriate way. This standard driver was introduced to overcome the "incompatibilities" of new types of SCSI devices (MO, CDs etc) that went past the old SCSI standard; in this way a standard was also put down so that different manufacturers could develop their own ASPI drivers that are (or rather SHOULD) compatible with these standard calls.

Q) What about a file called APIX.VXD?

A) This file is found under your "\windows\system\iosubsys" directory and is there for a reason:) If I recall correctly the name APIX stands for Aspi Programming Interface eXtension and is indeed an extension of the winaspi.dll/wnaspi32.dll which are your default win95 aspi drivers. These two drivers "dialogue" together exchanging complementary information on the status of all the devices on your system to the calling apps and OS - that is why it is in the IOSUBSYS (Input Output SUBSYStem) directory.

Q) Will this installation work for Soundforge 4.0 too?

A) Unfortunately, even with your DOS ASPI driver installed and Recycle working, you will NOT be able to accomplish SCSI dumps! Soundforge does not have the AKAI MIDI 2 SCSI implementation for some obscure commercial reason (?) thus eliminating the possibility of a consistent dialogue between SF and your AKAI.