Getting your Nikon Coolscan to work on W7 x64  

First off I'm talking about the firmware, not the Nikon Scan software which you linked to, and is the wrong version which is not what the instructions call for. Please remove it.

BTW you're talking to the author of the tutorial so I know what files, procedures, and links are needed. I was just hoping you had a direct page where the firmware link is since Nikon changed their download pages again. This link (latest Nikon firmware) used to take me directly to the firmware page but now it just goes to a search page.

Anyway I'll figure it out. Thanks.

Sorry for the confusion, I linked to the earlier version of Nikon Scan because I thought someone might want to test their scanner on the same XP box they were using for the firmware update. I can remove it if you think it invites confusion.

I didn't provide a direct link because the firmware for different models was located on different pages. The one page that appeared to offer firmware links for all Nikon products didn't have functional links for the Coolscan line. At the moment, that search page is not working for me the way it did just a few hours ago. I'll try again in the morning, from the computer I was using. This is strange.

spoolin01 said:

Sorry for the confusion, I linked to the earlier version of Nikon Scan because I thought someone might want to test their scanner on the same XP box they were using for the firmware update. I can remove it if you think it invites confusion.

Yes, it would.

I didn't provide a direct link because the firmware for different models was located on different pages. The one page that appeared to offer firmware links for all Nikon products didn't have functional links for the Coolscan line. At the moment, that search page is not working for me the way it did just a few hours ago. I'll try again in the morning, from the computer I was using. This is strange.

Thanks.

Removed the link. The search portal link above is again working for me. Search for Coolscan and you will find firmware update links for LS-8000, LS-4000, and the LS-40, as well as the Nikon Scan versions. Searching on the model name (e.g LS-8000) is also working for me.

Here is a link to a single page the purports to show update links for all Nikon products, but there're currently no active links. Maybe they'll get fixed.

I just finished using this to install a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 on a Windows 7 Pro 64 bit computer. It worked perfectly and took less than a hour, including downloading the software, reading instructions, installing software, getting out the scanner, finding a slide to test it with, and testing. Thanks for making me look good.

Glad to hear it worked for you.

Happy scanning :)

it was working the other day and now when I open nikon scan it shows greyed out buttons and the scanner won't accept film im so confused

Sorry but I stopped using the scanner in 2012, and no longer run Windows 7. Stopped using it in 2013.

Anyway I don't know why your issue popped up as I never had that issue back when I was running the scanner. With that, all I can offer is try reinstalling the software and making sure the scanner is in good working order.

Sorry.

Is that the latest firmware for that model? I've just started using several 8000 ED models with Windows 7 and saw the warning that they needed the latest firmware (1.11) to work with Win7 x64. When I first started acquiring these, a couple worked on Win7 with FW 1.05 (AMD cpu with VIA PCI firewire card). Then I changed PCs (AMD to Intel) and firewire card busses (PCI to PCIe), and the ones with 1.05 stopped working (got the "unrecognized film carrier" error message). I haven't sorted this all out, but when I did the FW upgrade on one of the machines, it started working OK again. I also have the situation where using one firewire card, the scanner works OK, using another it is recognized but does not work - looks like the symptoms you see).

I'd recommend starting over with Nikon Scan on a Windows XP machine (or maybe Vista) with a PCI firewire card (might have to try more than one chip maker), since those were the last supported configurations. Then you can troubleshoot your Windows 7 knowing the scanner (and FW card) work OK. At this point I'd suspect that virtually every component might make a difference when used in some combinations: motherboard, CPU, firewire bus (PCI vs PCIe), firewire card chip (VIA vs TI), Nikon firmware, and drivers for all of those.

I'm far from expert in understanding what goes on here, but my impression so far is that it will be easier to fit the PC hardware components to the scanner than it will be to "tune" the scanner to work with any particular set of PC hardware.

You could also try VueScan as they claim to provide their own drivers.