trouble installing hp deskjet 420

[Peter Brown]

I had an old pc with windows 98 and I was using a hp DeskJet 420 without
problems. I recently bought a pc with XP preinstalled and tried to install
the hp. I couldn't find the installation disks and so went onto the hp
website to download the drivers. It says that it already got the drivers on
XP. XP does detect the printer but keeps asking for the XP disks - which I
don't have! If I don't have the XP disks how can I install the printer? Can
the files that are on the XP disk available elsewhere?

Peter

 

[Tony]

I had an old pc with windows 98 and I was using a hp DeskJet 420 without
problems. I recently bought a pc with XP preinstalled and tried to install
the hp. I couldn't find the installation disks and so went onto the hp
website to download the drivers. It says that it already got the drivers on
XP. XP does detect the printer but keeps asking for the XP disks - which I
don't have! If I don't have the XP disks how can I install the printer? Can
the files that are on the XP disk available elsewhere?

Peter

Peter
Did you get a recovery disk with your PC?
If so, you should be able to use that disk when XP asks for the XP disks.
Tony

 

[Peter Brown]

No. To be honest the printer is old, but will this happen with any printer
that I buy?

 

[Tony]

Peter
It shouldn't happen with modern printers, but if you don't have an XP disk or a
recovery disk then some printers that are natively supported by WinXP will be a
problem to install. Sometimes the disk is requested and sometimes it is not.
If the PC you bought has a recovery partition you may be able to point the
install program there, it is worth a try. Alternatively do you know anybody
with an XP disk? There is nothing illegal about using their disk to help you
install a printer driver?
Tony

 

[Gary Tait]

No. To be honest the printer is old, but will this happen with any
printer that I buy?

Likely.