Printers Disappeared - Specified Port is Unknown

Running XP Home. Two HP printers: LaserJet 5P on
parallel and DeskJet 932C on USB. Installed XP about a
week ago and it recognized both printers and loaded the
drivers from XP-base. USB printer went first. It just
disappeared from the Printers & Faxes screen in Control
Panel. Parallel printer was still recognized by XP but
could not load driver because "specified port is
unknown." Now the computer does not recognize either
printer. Booted WinME in other partition and ran both
printers with the same connections with no problem. This
appears to rule out a hardware issue. Tried one restore
to no avail. Tried safe mode to no avail. Can you
help?

Is the print spooler running?

From the command prompt, type

net start spooler

(and hit enter). Do they now reappear?

Cari
www.coribright.com

"Robert Wright" <roberthwright.remove@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:f30f01c3f18b$a37492e0$a001280a@phx.gbl...
> Running XP Home. Two HP printers: LaserJet 5P on
> parallel and DeskJet 932C on USB. Installed XP about a
> week ago and it recognized both printers and loaded the
> drivers from XP-base. USB printer went first. It just
> disappeared from the Printers & Faxes screen in Control
> Panel. Parallel printer was still recognized by XP but
> could not load driver because "specified port is
> unknown." Now the computer does not recognize either
> printer. Booted WinME in other partition and ran both
> printers with the same connections with no problem. This
> appears to rule out a hardware issue. Tried one restore
> to no avail. Tried safe mode to no avail. Can you
> help?

Yes, the print spooler is on. Still, the USB printer is
not recognized recognized. It it not in the system. The
parallel printer is recognized but cannot be installed
because "specified port is unknown." This leaves me with
no printers and no way to install one.

Disconnect the printer from the PC.

Go into the Device Manager, find the USB Controllers, right click on each
and select Uninstall.

Reboot the PC. XP should now find and reinstall the correct drivers for
them.

Once all drivers are installed, try reinstalling the correct software for
your printer again... and don't connect the printer to the USB port until it
tells you to do so..

Cari
www.coribright.com

"Robert Wright" <roberethwright.remove@highstream.net> wrote in message
news:fbd201c3f1d2$7e281c90$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> Yes, the print spooler is on. Still, the USB printer is
> not recognized recognized. It it not in the system. The
> parallel printer is recognized but cannot be installed
> because "specified port is unknown." This leaves me with
> no printers and no way to install one.

Thanks for your suggestion. I don't believe I have a
driver problem as the printers were installed using XP-
based drivers. Additionally, I reinstalled the
driver.cab file from the XP CD, just in case the drivers
had become corrupt. This had no effect. The only clue
is the error message that "specified port is unknown" and
I haven't been able to retrieve any information by using
it as bait. Will get back

I resolved the problem by following the instructions in
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 324757. The description
of the problem per the article did not fit mine exactly,
but I decided to try it. Both of my printers have been
reinstalled and are functioning normally. I am not
certain that reinstalling the printers resolved all the
issues related to why the printers disappeared in the
first place, but we take what we can get. Onward to the
next glitch!

Robert
I had the same problem. Did you find an answer
Sue

He just posted his answer right above your post........
Hello!

"Sue" <ssweitzer@wi.rr.com> wrote in message
news:505AB889-1524-4436-B298-DE6D326B2A84@microsoft.com...
> Robert,
> I had the same problem. Did you find an answer?
> Sue