thanks for your help chaps, think i better give you a little back ground, had a Epson Perfection 1670 for about three years now, been fine till last week, tried scanning a photo, software ran OK, did preview, nothing, tried scan, nothing, rebooted day later, scanned OK!? day after, nothing again, first boot this morning windows ran chkdisk, (was scandisk) scanner worked fine, just booted this pm, nothing again, have e-mailed Epson, describing the prob, they suggested may need repair, but might as well spend that on a new one, thought about the CanoScan LiDE 600F because of compact size, usb power only, (just pull the USB plug till use) have just noticed on a video that the V350 has its connections near front R/H corner, the Canon has LED scan and illumination, no bulbs to go, have also considered the Epson Perfection V350 Photo, bit nervous now about another Epson, but it does look good on the video on Epson's site, click this- Epson Perfection V350 Video It has slide support, neg loader in lid looks good as well, and does come recomended online, by PC Pro mag, have not got many slides to scan, some from a holiday that i would like to backup, taken on my Olympus OM10 in Crete, good light, got the Powershot last year when the auto focus on my EOS went