Thus spake Ron P:

Years ago I had a similar problem and had to re-install the twain driver for
the scanner. Somehow it had become corrupted in such a manner that it
couldn't do anything other than give a preview image no matter what program I

used.

If you haven't tried a re-install of the twain driver (I am assuming here
that your scanner uses twain) it might be worth a try.

Thanks for your reply.

I had reinstalled the latest drivers for it a couple of times. No joy.

The scanner is now probably disassembled into its component plastic bits in
the recycle yard of the local community.
--
John English