Hi, My laptop does not have parallel port, but only 2 usb ports (Toshiba Portege). On the other hand, my scanner can be connected only though a parallel port (its Canon N640p). In order to solve this problem, I was told that using a IEEE1284 DB-25to USB cable would be able to solve the problem.The XP does have the driver for the parallel to usb cable. However, it didnt. Everytime, I get an error message "No scanners detected".. The operating system is Windows XP. PLEASE HELP! Regards

Hi, Just inaddition to the above...i contacted the canon representative and this is what he had to say: "Such configuration will NEVER work because the drivers and N640ex scanner are designed to communicate using the parallel port. Installation of all kinds of gadgets or convertors and everything seems connected well BUT the software driver will still look for the scanner exclusively on the parallel port".. Guess it WONT work..! regards

Buy a parallel port card from your local PC store. They come in ISA and PCI and go for around $20. Or you could use an old multi I/O card and disable everything except the printer port (which is currently running my wife's scanner).

Scanner software is usually poorly written and not compatible in obscure situations like you discribe. I would say your best bet is to hook up the scanner, restart your computer and then goto scanner/cameras in the control panel. If your scanner is listed there, try using the built in wondows scanning software. (My computer -> right click on scanner and select scan) If your scanner was not listed in the scanners/cameras section, you can try going to add hardware. Go through the wizard and see if it will detect the scanner.. if it does not, you will have to select it from a list. If it gets to selecting from a list, I doubt it will work. good luck though