Installing a scanner on XP: The Saga

XP is supposed to make working with devices easy, right? Right?

I have an HP Scanjet 5100c which I used successfully on my old PC for ages, first under Windows 98 and then under Windows XP. Recently I bought a new PC and tonight I needed to scan something, so I dug out the HP install disk and had at it.

Problem 1: Once I'd installed the software and plugged the scanner in, Windows XP would get as far as detecting new hardware and promptly reset. This has happened to me once before with WinFast TV2000 XP WDM Crossbar. In this case the problem was sharshtl.sys (Shuttle printer sharer). I fixed it by unplugging the scanner and then renaming sharshtl.sys so Windows couldn't load it.

Problem 2: Once that was done, XP booted up fine and the scanner was there (twice, actually). Unfortunately when I tried to scan with it, HP PrecisionScan would report that the scanner was not responding... and then the scanner would scan anyway (but the data wouldn't reach the PC).

I'm still not sure whether this is fixed or not. After a few reboots and messing about, the parallel port test is claiming "Scanner not responding", but PrecisionScan went ahead and scanned properly anyway.

Tilt.

Oh, and I downloaded an updated driver from HP's web site. When I try to run it, I get an error stating "The file could not be located", and the program quits. Real good, HP.