Scanner problem

I have an Epson Stylus SX445W printer/scanner connected to my laptop via a USB port. My laptop, which runs Vista, recognises the printer but does not recognise the scanner element. The drivers are up to date and using "Add new hardware" does not make any difference. Any thoughts?

 

Did you download and install the Epson Scan software?

(Make sure you select your Operating System on the left of that page before starting a download).

 

No software was loaded from disc supplied with hardware. At the moment I get round the problem by scanning to to a memory card and plugging this into my laptop.

 

Hate when that happens.

 

I had a similar problem with an HP all-in-one which suddenly stopped scanning. After a couple of horrible weeks of disinstalling and reinstalling the HP software, I was resigned to not having a scanner. Then out of the corner of my eye, while doing something completely different, I happened to spot the line "Acquire/Batch scanning" on the File menu of IrfanView. I tried it and it works like a dream! You might like to check it out. If you don't have it already, IrfanView is pretty awesome anyway, and it's free.

 

I have a similar situation with a HP All in One 7310. The full software package was so massive (600+mb) I elected just to go with just the drivers. Now I have to access my scanner via "Control Panel" and "Scanners and Cameras ". I don't do a lot of scanning so it's no problem for me to do it that way. My system is XP so don't know if it will work in Vista but it would be worth a try.

 

I have Win 7 and did load all the software and I still have to use that same procedure to scan with my HP Photosmart C6380 All-in-One.

 

I had the exact problem.

I fixed it by:
1) Did a level 4 clearing of all HP stuff. You can find the level 1 thru 4 on your original software disk and on the latest download of the software and drivers (full) from HP site. I downloaded the file from HP and used the one on the download.
2) after cleaning and reboot I turned my virus and malware protection (Microsoft essentials) off and installed.
3) if you follow the instructions exactly, it works fine including the scanner. I have an all-in-one (C4280).

I could not get it done until I turned off the virus protection. I tried it many times over a two week period before discovering the problem was caused by Microsoft essentials.