I shall try this, Peter. Permissions is not an issue as I'm the only person using this computer (though I did check Users and Groups to be sure.) Steve is correct in identifying it as an AGFA Snapscan 1212u.
Bev.
Download vuescan, see if it will work with that, if so now try it with xsane and see if it works. If not, buy vuescan. If it works with xsane after you've used vuescan, I don't know why this happens, but it does, so just keep your demo copy around in case of need.
Peter