HP Scanjet 3500C under WinXP, stops responding!

I have HP Scanjet 3500C and I also have two machines at home (one is several times faster than the other one) (both Win XP). I installed the scanner on both of them but I had exactly the same problem: sometimes I succed to perfectly scan few pictures but sometimes not even one - some strange error occurs and the scanner stops responding, the lamp stops and does not move at all, until I unplug the USB, and start the HP Director again. The error message says that if the 22 blinks, then something, if not then something else, but I do not understand this.
Has anyone had the same problem? Is it XP, since this scanner worked PERFECTLY under Win 98? Please help me since I have to scann the whole book and prepare it for printing in a matter of days.

Thanks upfront.

Yokozuna!