filmscanners: Re: new Minolta Scan Dual II not working after one day.

[Rome <adnixon@tin.it>]

Acer V wrote:
>>> Next day I... ...plugged the Minolta in again to do some more
>>> scanning with ColorSync now in operation - But now the little green light on
>>> the front won't come on, and when I fire up the Minolta driver utility on
>>> its own, or from within Photoshop, or use the Easyscan utility, all I get is
>>> an error message saying:
>>> "Could not confirm scanner connection"

>> One possibility could be that you plugged it in while the Mac was on and the
>> Minolta was on and fried the I/O chip. A 'friend' did this for me once with
>> a Tectronics printer. Do you remember if both were turned off?
> 
> isn't the whole point of usb to be plug-n-play and also hot swappable?
> 
> /Acer V

The Mac was certainly on, because, yes, I too believe in the hot
swappability of USB. Though normally, just to be safe, out of habit, having
grown up in the 1960s and being rather old-fashioned and safety conscious
that way, pedantically so in fact, I would have ensured that the scanner was
off before I plugged it into the computer. Unfortunately, this is virtually
impossible to confirm with the Dimage II, as the on-off switch is the
'returning-flush-button' type, and worse, there is no noticeable difference
in push-resistance to be felt between the on and off positions. So when it's
off, you can't tell what position the switch is in, unless you switched it
off before you unplugged it, and know for sure that no-one touched it in the
meantime. Not very practical and not very failsafe.
Other than that, I did it just like it says in the user-manual, which says:

"CONNECTING THE HARDWARE
Connecting the AC power adapter and the USB Cable:
This scanner has been packaged with the USB cable and AC power adapter.

1. Plug the AC power adapter cord into the
scanner¹s AC socket, then plug it into a grounded
outlet.

2. Connect one end of the USB
cable to either USB port (sic - there's only one!) on the back of the
scanner.

3. Connect the other end of the USB
cable to the USB port
on the computer or the USB Hub
terminal.

NOTE: When connecting the Dual2 with the USB hub terminal, be sure to
connect to the closest terminal to the computer."

That's all it says. There's no warnings against hot swapping. In fact, the
opposite is the case, for in the user-manual's glossary definition of USB,
Minolta say:

"It does not matter whether the USB equipment or
computer is turned on or off first.
In the USB connection, the USB equipment or
computer can be connected or disconnected even
while the equipment is turned on."

Doesn't sound much like a warning against hot swapping to me, does it to
you?
So there you have it. I'm not taking the rap for how I plugged this thing
in.

Since last night I've also tested it by trying to install it on a P4 Win 98
machine as well, but no show. Whatever's fried is fried, and it wasn't me
holding the skillet. If nobody has any other ideas about software bugs it
could be, I'm taking it back to the store tomorrow for a replacement.

Cheers,

Adam.