It Don't Scan--

I don't know. I'd wonder about rough handling.

I've used half a dozen scanners in various places and none has died an early death. At work I'm still using an HP scanner from the early 1990s.

That's what warranties are for!

In my experience scanners don't have particularly bad reliability, though I've seen a few of the low end Musteks trashed at a fairly young age.

Dave

I still use an HP Scanjet 6100C, and I have the sheet feeder to go with it, though I've never tried that out. It's a great scanner- it must be considering the abuse I've given it and the abuse it received at it's previous home- a busy office. Solid build, unlike many modern scanners, and very nice image quality.

Dave

You're not trying to scan your ass, like people do with photocopiers?

Hard to say, I bought a Microtek Scanmaker E3 when scanners first took their massive price plunge back in the late 90s and I still use it today. Granted it's pretty big and clunky but it still works. I see quite a few older scanners being given away for free, maybe you should adopt one and try your luck with an older unit.

Hi!

It might help us to know what kind of scanners you had and how they failed (no powering up, software errors, tries to scan but won't, etc...).

Scanners should be pretty long-lived devices. Until a basement flood wiped it out, I had and used an HP ScanJet III almost daily...sure it was greyscale only, but it worked well for scanning documents and images that I

I have other scanners that have also had good lifetimes...HP OfficeJet 600, ScanJet 5 (of some kind), ScanJet 3000 series and a few others, including an Acer flatbed model. I've also had good luck with every Samsung printer I've owned thus far--two ML-1710s, one ML-1740 and most recently a CLP-550N color laser printer.

William

I bought an HP scanner, scanned a small booklet, and two days later I couldn't even get the damn scanning light to come on. The one befire that lasted a little bit longer, five or six scans, then phhhtttt; a dead scanner. No abuse, no hard use, just some light usage and about a hundred bucks gone out the window. Maybe I'm a scannet jinx, I don't know.

Ron

Hi, William;

Both scanners died of the same problem: after a short while the scan light wouldn't come on and the scanners wouldn't respond to software commands. The first one lasted about a dozen scans, then the second scanner, an HP scanner although I don't remember the model, lasted a lot less than that. About two scans and R.I.P-- the thing became permanently unresponsive and the diagnostics say the unit isn't on the system. I use Windows 2000 which has been pretty reliable with things from biofeedack units to everything else except for the scanners. But it's always been a hardware problem (the scanners) than a software problem.

Ron

Did you try returning them to the store? If you only scanned one booklet they should give you a new one.