Stubborn Scanner Driver - "Malfunctioned Device" and "Unknown Device"

[Daveskater]

Hi, I'm trying to reinstall my sister's scanner driver because XP has decided that it's not there any more. This happens occasionally and usually reinstalling the driver fixes it (I think that's what I did last time), but this time i just can't get it to work.

If i unplug the USB cable then plug it in again, it comes up with a message saying that the device has malfunctioned and it doesn't recognize it. I have the driver CD but windows always manages to install it as "Unknown device" before i can tell it to search the CD. I've tried telling it to reinstall the driver from the CD but it says that there are "no better matches for this device". I've also tried uninstalling the program form the CD and reinstalling it then restarting the pc but that didn't help either. I tried plugging it into another USB port (as suggested by Windows Help Center) but that still didn't work.

It's not often that something like this gets me in a circle and scratching my head but I'm really starting to run out of ideas.

Any help would be very appreciated, i just want to get this thing running again

 

[kirock]

Could it be that the scanner really did die?

 

[Daveskater]

It could be, but i'm hoping it hasn't it's just randomly happened a few times before and i managed to fix it but it could be that it's just decided to give up the ghost now

it is about 4 years old as well, i still have the receipt (it used to be mine but i gave it to my sister because i couldn't get drivers for vista)