Printer and scanner compatibility

[Steve Dwyer]

My printer doesn't seem to recognise my scanner. Can someone help? I have been eavesdropping in on the conversation between blackwidow?? Savvy Lady TW56 and others. I have a similar problem. Since I installed my Epson stylus PHOTO 890 printer, I have tried to re-install my SCANMAGIC 600CP scanner. I have installed and re-installed from scratch using the appropriate discs, but I keep getting a COMMUNICATIONS ERROR message. I am new to all of this so please be gentle with me.
Thanks in anticipation.
Steve.

 

[Lurker1]

Hi Steve

Are both units using the same parallel Port? Sometimes devices don't like to share one LPT port. You could always buy an add in card for your PC that will give you a second parallel port (LPT2). Then you could run each device on it's own port.

 

[Davey7549]

Steve
Welcome to TSG!
Several things come to mind why the printer and scanner are not communicating. Before we get into what It could be please give me some info.
What Make and model are the following, Computer, and Printer.
Also what OS are you running Win95,98,98se,ME ect:
Lastly what is your current hookup of the Printer and Scanner.
Is the Printer Hooked to parallel and Scanner hooked to Printer or
are they hooked to USB? You get the idea.
Dave

 

[slipe]

You might try the latest driver for your scanner: http://www.mustek-driver.de/sm/600cp.html

Often when installing a device causes the scanner to disappear it is because a twain file got corrupted. An uninstall of your scanner software will not remove them and a reinstall will not overwrite them if they are there. If you remove them, an install of the scanner software will put in new twain files.

Uninstall your scanner software. Follow the Mustek instructions for deleting your twain and twunk files: http://www.mustek.com/Support/techdocs/del_twain.html Make sure you delete only the files found in the Windows directory. Then reinstall the software.

 

[Nick Scott]

Check whether the Epson printer installation has renamed your parallel port to something like "Epson printer port" in device manager.

If it has you will have to remove the device and let Windows reinstall it through plug and play. Once you have done that install the scanner again with only it plugged in to the parallel port.

Then with the printer reconnected edit the printer's properties to use the newly reinstalled Printer port (LPT1).

You should now find that the two devices can work together through the same port. I had this happen to me with an Agfa 1212p scanner and an Epson 800 printer.