HP ScanJet Pro 3500 f1 thick vertical black line in the scan

[leoknol]

Since a couple of days my scanjet pro 4500 fb1 gives scans with a wide black strip, from the glass and from the AFD. The guarantee lapsed by a month so I can't claim anything. HP doesn't sell spare parts. It seems that the scanner head is malfunctioning but being served by hp is no item (after phoning the help desk in Poland = where I am working). In this way I am forced to buy a new scanner and that after just a bit more than one year (a trick perhaps of hp to force buyng new rahter expensive stuff?). Is there someone of hp who knows the rights solutions for these problems? I am not the only one as I can see on the post page.

[GPAN]

I have the same issue and by reading the numerous claims on this with no reply from HP I can only speculate that this is a product fault… The only workaround I have experienced and can suggest is to scan an initial blank sheet, given that the black strip only appears on the first scanned page. Of course this will only work with the feeder and not the flatbed. If you have just one side of a document to scan, put the blank side up in the feeder and that will work !