Hewlett Packard Photosmart C7280 Multifunktion Tintenstrahldrucker

I purchased the C7280 four months ago with the intention of having an all-in-one for the home office that I could use begin transcribing a large collection of family photo albums to JPEG files. The C7280 appeared to work well at first, but I've continuously had problems with unreliable scanning. It seems to work fine for the odd half-dozen photo prints, but on larger sessions it has a nasty habit of hanging up without warning, taking all the work with it. (No, it doesn't save the scans to a temp directory as you're working so you might be able recover them.) It did it again to me today, taking two hour's worth of work with it. The error message said the printer was no longer able to communicate with the PC and to check the connections. The USB cable was fine, and after I ultimately closed and restarted the HP software, the scanner functioned normally again.