Gathering dust on our landing is a Mustek A3 USB 600 Pro-Scanner. Purchased to save me from the tedious and frustrating task of stitching pages together on a very awkward A4 scanner.I've had it for over a year and in that time it's mostly refused to work and crashed or frozen the PC. I installed and re-installed it dozens of times(on occasion it scanned once or twice, then gave up), I've removed other programs, switched off security(Spyware, McAfee, etc), doubled the memory, visited many forums, talked to it nicely, made blood sacrifice to the gods, and then, like the Mustek, i gave up.
So, it's there, 10 feet away under the smokey gaze of Marlene Dietrich, opposite a cobwebbed exercise bike. Doing nothing.
I really need an A3 scanner that works(especially for the next project after Channel Evil), so I'm probably gonna have to pay some black belt IT wizard to come have a look. But before i reluctantly reach for the Yellow Pages, i wanted to ask if anyone reading has had the same problem and solved it?
Any help gratefully received.
12 comments:
What operating system are you running? I think your problem is that you don't have an O.S. that can handle the old drivers of this relic scanner. My guess is that anything newer than Windows 98 would probably not work with this device.
Here's the Mustek scanner driver page:
http://xpdrivers.com/scanner/mustek/_3_2190.cfm
The driver noted at the top of this page looks pretty current, so that might work to install it.
Technology sucks arse! (Apart from the Immortality draft that I have a group of M.I.T students cooking up for me in the basement at gun point)HO! HO!
Jays right, looks like it's a Win 98 scanner. The Mustek homepage only has Win98 drivers for it.
If you are strapped for cash you could try installing VirtualBox on your PC, get a copy of Win98 from some charitable person and install it on VirtualBox along with the scanner.
Might work might not. Probably worth a go though.
jay - we've got windows xp, which i know has caused problems with other unfortunate mustek owners.
i'll check that link, many thanx.
indio - let me know how that immortality thing goes - nothing evil ever dies!
john - thankyou, sir. cash is rather tight(comes with not working for months)will try virtualbox and begging first.
An immortal INDIO! ... blimey .. what a scarey thought ....
Shane .. another option is to try to get a cheap Windows 98 pc off someone .. as people upgrade they tend to throw out the old laptop or whatever ... and use this just for scanning ... stick the scanned image on a memory stick and then transfer it to your state of the art finely tuned cybernetics corporation device. just chucking the option in as I tend to find working around the problem, when it comes to IT, to be far more successful than trying to solve it.
dave - good idea.
i often 'work around the problem', a little lateral thinking can save the day. fer instance, most of CHANNEL EVIL #1 was scanned in from A4 photocopies. but this stopped me from doing all the book in watercolour grey washes(that's what i need my mustek for).
but tuther problem is our workspace for PC and doodads is very cramped, there's really no room for another PC or much else(unless we do a MAJOR declutter and purchase a longer/taller unit).
and there's the limited cash thing(at least for the next 6-8 weeks).
but, once i have all my options in front of me, i'll weigh up the pros and cons.
thanx for the suggestion.
PJ Holden wrote a piece on his blog about the Brother DCP-6690CW which got my interest as I've been looking for a reliable A3 scanner for ages. He seems to think its a good choice and if I ever get enough money together that doesn't instantly go on the house bills then I'd think about buying it.
Here's his bit about it (don't know how to do links sorry)
http://www.pauljholden.com/blog/2009/08/09/tools-of-the-trade-the-scanner/
if all else fails and if you can be bothered... dual boot with linux (Ubuntu is good). It doesnt take too long and the support is usually very good. I have tried allsorts of weird scanners/printers /peripherals and it has taken nearly all of them.
Hi Shane, this may not be a great help to you but I have owned two of these scanners. One ran on a Windows XP machine for two years without a problem. The one I now own has been running on a Windows Vista machine for a year with no problems. It's probably not the case that you need a Windows 98 machine to run this scanner, so I think you may need to look elsewhere for the solution. I realise that this doesn't really solve anything, but hopefully it will save you from making an expensive mistake.
graeme - thanx for the link.
right now i'm determined to get this mustek working.
christopher j.d. - cheers! will put that on my 'TO TRY' list.
rich - thankyou for the input.
i abandoned the concept of buying another PC or laptop about 5 minutes after considering. even if we had the space, it does seem an extravagant solution.
may have a way around it...
I had a Mustek years ago when i was doing the 1st BLACK FOREST book- it seemed to work fine at first- then time passed and as my computers upgraded the Mustek started getting more eccentric- eventually-within the last year or so-i had to consign it to the trash bins as it just gave up the fight-
so now i use a Brother MFC-6490CW which allows me to scan at 11 x 17 and 8 1/2 x 11 via two separate trays-
but i do miss the Mustek from time to time-like my first girlfriend... you never forget your 1st...but in this case...I dumped HER...;o)
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