Digital BW, The Print

Hello all,

For about 10 years I have used a Minolta QuickScan 35 plus, and have
used it to scan in lots of 35mm negatives. 

I am finding that I am not entirely satisfied with the noise levels.
Further, it seems that there are no drivers for this beyond Windows 2k. 

I currently have it connected to an old win 2k laptop but the images
come out extremely grainy  and/or noisy.

I can't afford to spend more than $800 on a new scanner. Any thoughts
out there about what would be a good scanner purchase? 

I don't need a print scanner, and it seems that anything that is doing
both negatives and prints wouldn't do negatives as well.

Also, is it inevitable that I will get lots of grain? An example of
what I mean is at
http://www.seltzergirl.com/scanex/img034_FritzInBathroom.jpg

Again, all I have are 35mm negatives, so perhaps I can't get better
quality than this.

Thanks in advance

julie