My Dell and my Epson aren't speaking. Can any of you pros help?
 

I'll make this as brief as I can. I've got a new Dell 2.2 GHz P4. I bought a new Epson CX5200 printer/scanner. The printer works, but the scanner does not. Epson spent several hours testing both the computer and the printer/scanner. Their determination was that the "Twain 5" driver in my computer wasn't working right - even after reloading that driver. They said call Dell.

I called Dell's 800 line to India and was quickly connected to a very rude and impatient person who didn't really want to do anything for me. After me losing my cool he tried a few things, but mostly told me I needed to call Epson.

The Epson guy really seemed to know his stuff. We were able to get the scanner to scan using MS Paint, but he said that uses a different route than the Twain 5 driver. It was that fact the lead him to believe that the printer/scanner was not at fault.

In the next few days I plan to try the Epson on my old computer, but it's a real brick that barely runs. I'd rather skip that step if I could. Anybody have any direction for me (save the "Don't buy a Dell" stuff - even though I own Dell stock I'll never buy another one).

Had almost the exact same problem with a Sony VAIO desktop and Epson scanner I purchased a few months ago. The scanner was just a flatbed and not a printer combo. Went back and forth with Epson quite a bit and they were never able to help me. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers dozens of times which did nothing.

As a last ditch effort I did a Windows reset/restore and installed the scanner drivers before doing anything else. The scanner has worked perfectly ever since. A friend of mine had the same experience with an Epson printer.

Be sure to make a backup of any personal files you have because everything gets wiped out when you reset your system.

Can't blame the computer box manuf. if they can't diagnose each and every peripheral on the market. I suggest bugging the peripheral manuf. first. It's their equipment that doesn't work. You'd think Epson would have a fix if this were a universal problem with Dells (or MS).

"Be sure to make a backup of any personal files you have because everything gets wiped out when you reset your system." Wonderful :(

Sherwood

Amazing that people complain and/or don't do backups. How the hell have you gotten this far in life not doing backups? Keep all your data in a central place. Windows likes the standard "Documents and Settings\user" but you can use any directory you want. Then at set intervals copy the stuff to a secure place. The new thumb drives make this even easier. Hard drives don't last forever you know!

"....because everything gets wiped out when you reset your system."

David,
I took that phrase to mean entire hard drive is wiped out everytime one "resets" (reinstalls?) the Windows OS. That's lame. In the Mac world, one can reinstall the system without having to back up 80 Gb or so of data (backups notwithstanding). If Macs can do it this way, shouldn't MS OS be able to do it as well (esp. with their resources).

Sherwood

What is the interface to between the Epson and the Dell? USB? Have you verified they are both either USB 1.x or USB 2.x?

Interface is USB 2.0 . The Dell guy after much pressure did a Windows "repair" which I guess isn't the same as a complete reinstall. That didn't help. I've got a feeling we're in for a hard drive format to make this thing work.

As if to add insult to injury I got e-mail today that one of the rebates that enticed me to buy the Epson was "not approved" because they didn't like something about my copy of the receipt. What did I use to make the copy??? My new Epson printer! Hopefully I can get that straightened out tomorrow.

Lee, go into the device manager, delete the driver, download a new one from Epson, and install/update it. Formatting the drive seems a bit extreme, but who knows.

Good luck!

-Brad

The Epson guy had me do that... more than once!

So, the easy answer is to keep your 80 GB of data on a second drive. Wipe the system drive and leave your data drive alone. With that much data to save you're probably already doing something similar. However I agree that MS should offer a similar capability to avoid wiping system drive. Regardless, keeping your data separated from the system (OS files) is a good habit to practice. How many times I've helped people find their files...

Sounds like its time to take the Epson back and go for another model/manufacturer. You're burning way too much time trying to resolve what should have been a slam dunk. I advise you to NOT REFORMAT YOUR DRIVE - that is simply insane.

David makes an understatement. Yep, I expected plug and play with this thing. Comp USA's return policy doesn't allow for returns after 30 days, so I'm pretty much stuck trying to get it working or getting Epson to swap it out.

Sell it on Ebay.

Hey, Aaron. I expected you to be one of the people who helped... figured you'd tell me to flip the "make your Epson printer/scanner work" switch on the back of my box.

I hooked the Epson up to my old PII 450 HP this morning and it worked perfectly. I called Dell back with that news and they said we needed to format the hard drive and start over. Sure enough, it worked. Funny how Epson and Dell were blaming each other. In the end, Dell ended up blaming Microsoft! They claimed that the windows updates are slapped together so quickly that they usually cause more harm than good.

Oh well. It's fixed. To date I've got about seven hours of time on this. I've almost got all the software reinstalled. I'm just happy that my Quicken back up loaded OK. It would have been a serious problem if that had failed.

Lee,

I have officially exorcised all Microsoft products from my collection of computers at home, and I don't deal with printers at all in my job (and very little XP, for that matter). Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance. ;)