Anyone come across this issue with Minolta Scan Elite II?

Just on the off chance, I’m posting this here...

I have an elderly Scan Elite II which I bought new and which has always been well treated. It has had significant, but not excessive, use. Nowadays, I use it with VueScan under Windows 10. For a while now, it has been very hard to start up. At first I thought it was the power supply, so I replaced it, but it has made no difference. When switched on, it just sits there. The green light is either off or blinking and closer inspection shows that the internal illumination is on. However, it just sits there. Repeated turning on and off will eventually lead to it initialising properly and I can then use it normally (although it seems to be getting even noisier than originally). Turn it off or disconnect the data cable and you’ve had it. ‘Repeated’, in this context, can be a few dozen to over a hundred times. Giving it “breaks” sometimes - but not always - works. It’s probably a hardware issue, since the device isn’t “seen” by the computer until fully initialised. I use it under FireWire, but the problem is the same with USB 2.0 as well.

Any observations/suggestions, other than seeking out a replacement (not trivial!)?

Many thanks.

Peter