I’d post this on the Apple forums, but I keep getting an error message every time I try to log on. Par for the course, I’d day.
So, I just upgraded my operating system to Mac OS 10.8.2, Mountain Lion. I did this so I could share information easier over all my devices. Overall, I like the new operating system and how it’s designed. But it’s not without its issues. One is the weird reverse scrolling and the fact that the system only wants you to download items from the Apple Store. Both of these things can be overcome by changing the preferences in System Preferences.
But the real problem is that my scanner stopped working. My old HP Scanjet 3970, which works fine, doesn’t run in Mountain Lion and HP has no plans to support it. I had no interest in buying a new scanner to replace one that wasn’t broken (though that’s how high tech stuff works– planned obsolescence). I searched all around and found no easy answers. In the end, I just downloaded the last supported scanner driver, for system 10.5. And voilá, that made things work again.
So for anyone who is in the same situation, even though HP says it doesn’t support the Scanjet 3970, the most recent driver seems to work. You can download it from this page; click “HP Photosmart Studio Includes Support for Mac OS X v10.3, v10.4 and v10.5 (Leopard).”
Thank you soooo much for this posting. I have an HP 3970 and it stopped working when I upgraded to Lion. I now have Mountain Lion and was thinking that I would have to discard my 3970. Your information is very much appreciated!! Design on!!! Happy New Year Too!!
I’m glad this helped somebody. Happy New Year to you, too!
Does this also support using the scanner for slides?
The program has the option of scanning from slides or negatives, so I assume it supports slide scanning. I haven’t used it for that, though.
Thank you for this! You helped me out too.
A question for you- now that I have got it working again, I don’t see the option for adjusting my pixels anymore. Do you know how I can do this (to scan at 300 instead of 2000?
Sorry, that should say “instead of 200″.
Never mind, I got it
I was going to say it’s the “adjust” button at the top, but you found it.
Thank you for this post, I am also trying to get by scanjet 3970 working again under mountain lion, but after installing the driver you mentioned above, it still doesn’t work for me- after I open HP Scan pro, hit the New scan button, and only get the waiting animation, and the scanner doesn’t scan… any ideas please on what I might have done wrong? Thank you very much
I don’t know. I’d simply try unplugging and replugging back in the scanner. Also, did you restart the computer after you installed the new software?