I use a HP ScanJet 3500c scanner with my Apple via USB for flat bed scanning.
Upon returning from a trip where the scanner and computer had been powered down, I was surprised to find that my HP PrecisionScan Pro software, which was working perfectly fine before I left, could no longer see the scanner and was erroring out.
At first I suspected a power surge, but not only is the scanner plugged into an APC Smart-UPS, it was unplugged while away. My second guess was that the scanner or power supply had just died of natural causes, however inspecting the hardware overview, the machine clearly saw an ‘hp scanjet 3500c series’ on the USB bus.
No amount of disconnecting or reconnecting of the USB or power seemed to show any signs of life with the printer. Rebooting didn’t help. Apple had no OS X Tiger upgrades to deal with it.
In the back of my mind, I suspected that perhaps it was an upgrade that got me into this fix. Apple is a smart company in that they don’t try to maintain permanent backwards compatability. They understand that with innovation comes sacrifices, and that small sacrifices over time are easily delt with. Thus, their operating system remains cutting edge for speed and size, delivering power, performance, and features.
So, while the scanner is technically discontinued, I went over to HP’s site to check things out. Sure enough, they had a new driver called COL10835a.dmg.
I downloaded it, installed it, and to my surprise, not only did the scanner spring to life, but they had revamped their scanning software! Huzzah!