help with scanner not recognized

[morocco]

first, a disclaimer. if someone knows of a better forum (photo or

computer) somewhere on the internet for this question, please let me

know. i have tried working with canon customer service, and have not

had resolution of this issue.

 

i have a canoscan fs4000 film scanner that has performed flawlessly

over the past 3 years. the computer is a dell dimension 4300 running

windows xp. when i unplugged the scanner from one usb port and

switched it to another usb port the computer no longer recognized the

scanner. these were not hub ports, they were right on the computer.

i tried the new hardware wizard. i tried unistalling the hardware.

i tried installing the hardware from disk, from the previous file,

from a dowladed canon internet file. THE DRIVER WILL NOT REINSTALL.

i tried unistalling then unplugging, unplugging then unistalling,

turning the computer on with the scanner on, or off, plugged, or

unplugged, etc etc etc.

 

i assume this has happed to someone else experienced in the digital

darkroom. please help, or lead me to someplace that can help.

 

thanks you.

[raphael_bustin2]

Has the "new" USB port ever been known to work?

Google on "usbview" and download and try it. It'll tell you if the scanner is properly enumerating on the USB bus. Windows Device Manager might also give you a hint (ie., does the scanner show up in Device Manager?)

Another possibility is to hack the registry and delete any/all keys relating to the scanner. Do this at your own risk!

[david_arran]

Is the scanner recognised if you attach it to the original USB port again? If yes, then suspect a bad port. If not, and other devices work on either of the USB ports, then suspect a bad device. Odd that the scanner should go bad simply by switching ports, but it could happen.

 

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the USB hub controller in Device Manager? That would be the next most logical step.

[klix]

Did you accidentally slide the scanner's switch to SCSI instead of USB?

[Stock-Photos]

Many times USB and firewire cords fail. The small wires inside break from repeated bending. Try replacing your USB cord.

I had good luck and loved the low prices at:

http://www.ebusinesscables.com

Some cables at major electronics stores can be upwards of $40.00!

Not so at EBC.

[morocco]

thanks for your responses so far.

 

what i realize now is that the scanner and usb cord are fine. the computer recognizes that there is new hardware installed. the problem is that i can not reinstall the driver from the disk that came with the scanner. i also can not reinstall the driver from the canon website. the new hardware wizard proceeds fine until the final files are being transferred, then stops and says it cannot complete installation. the device manager says SCANNER with a yellow caution and exclamation point, and that scanners properties say that no driver is installed.

 

so its a software problem. please, somebody, help!

 

thanks, again.

 

bill

[stefan_g]

Hi, my working assumption after suffering through nonsense like this a few times is that installing and uninstalling under Windows needs ample reboots, because often the actual

deletion/insertion of registry entries takes place only at the next reboot.

 

So, I'd suggest to deinstall the driver, disconnect the scanner, reboot,

check that there is no device left that looks like your scanner, may be even search the registry (under W2K it was from the 'start' menu -> run -> type 'regedt32.exe' + hit 'return') for absence of 'canoscan' and/or 'fs4000'. At this point it depends on what the scanner instructions say for Windows XP: you either need to install the driver (from the disk) and reboot before you plug in the scanner, or let the automatic 'new hardware found' process take care of driver installation.

Well, you probably did all this already; I just wanted to emphasize the reboot part.

 

Sorry, I think this whole registry thing is stupid, but hey, I don't work for Microsoft, so I'm probably totally missing the finer points... Good luck.

[morocco]

stefan, at about the time you were typing your message i was actually just shutting down and rebooting, with and without the scanner on, with or without recognition of the scanner, in seemingly 10s of different permutations. inexplicably, all of a sudden, the scanner was recognized and is fully functional with the driver installed. what finally made things work? i have no idea. when it was recognized i had rebooted the computer with the scanner unattached, then plugging into the usb port allowed installation of the hardware and software (from the installation disk). i had tried this many times before.

 

i have a relative who says stuff like this never happens with a mac. is that true?

 

thank you all for your help.

 

bill

[imaginator]

Don't use the usb ports on the front of your computer... they are often not wired up well (and/or not grounded well) The usb ports in the back are much better. Also, sometimes there are issues when more than one usb device is plugged in... try removing all other usb cables (except the scanner) I'm glad you got things working, but it still sucks not knowing what why or how. I have had similar experiences with Win98 and WinXP, where it was important when you connect and/or turn on the device, and also how the driver is installed. Unfortunately, I didn't write any of it down, so I'm in the same boat as you... might have to figure it out all over again. Get a new cable (as suggested) just in case. By the way (probably not related, but good to know), if WinXP asks for an "enhanced usb controller" that means usb2, but you may not need it, just cancel and usb will work fine, but only as usb1. To add usb2 to WinXP, you have to get the download from microsoft, but this requires registering your WinXP, and it's part of an update package (or whatever they call it... service pack?) that is a big download. Persoanlly, I find this a pain in the azz, and because I don't use windows for internet (just for photo work like scanning) I just don't need all that other stuff. Anyway, you can get the usb2 (enhanced usb controller) for WinXP WITHOUT the whole update package. Your scanner installation software may include this, but mine only had it for Win98 and Win2000, leaving the XP user to rely on microsoft download of service pack. Honestly, you might consider using Win2000 instead of XP for photo work, and how about trying Linux (free) for internet, with windows on another partition (dual boot... you choose windows or linux at boot) Anyway, hope you don't have to go throught the guessing game again (when installing a device), but if you do, take notes of everything you do... I wish I had.