A scanner usually has different settings depending on whether you're scanning a document or photo, glossy or matt etc, make sure that you're chosing the right setting.
When you say you're getting distorted colour, what do you mean? That the colour's all have a hue of a certain colour, or something else? You might try reinstalling the driver and software for the scanner - it's unlikely, if it's just stopped working properly one day, for it to be a hardware issue.