I have a very limited experience with scanners, maybe because my cheap old one just works. Usually, I only do this:
- Open a terminal and type:
su
modprobe scanner
xsane
Nothing more, nothing less. You need to have sane and xsane installed. Odd that your Mandrake installation didn't have both installed by default.
I'm afraid I can't give more help then this, but I wish you luck though
Regards!