OK -- so I made a change to my system and moved my ms to the serial port, so now the only usb device I have attached is my scanner

First I ran:
insmod /KNOPPIX/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/usb/scanner.o vendor=0x03F0 product=0x0101
which appeared to run successfully (well, at least it didn't complain)

then I ran:
dmesg | grep usb

which returned:
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 19:48:59 Apr 17 2004
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xe000, IRQ 10
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver usb-storage
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
usb.c: registered new driver usbscanner

Which appears to now recognise a usb scanner (but has a line about remount parameter error)

However, when I run:
scanadf --L
it reports:
scanadf: no SANE devices found

running usbview does not display the new device either.

Thank you for your help. Are there any other suggestions or am I at a dead end?