Printer not recognised

[Vital Spark]

I did clean install of Vista Home Prem 64 bit on HP with 4MB ram. Everything
works except I cannot get a new Epson A3 size printer(Stylus Photo 1400) to
be recognized by any USB port. The driver will not install (Either from disk
on new downloaded ver) because of an 'Unknown device. not recogised ' error.
Tries HP chat not to be unkind but useless is being kind to them. Tries Epson
email support, again no response in 8 days!! Please if you have any idea how
to fix this let mr know. Of course I have tried everything from uninstalling
USB drivers on root hub to unpligging things in a certain sequence. You name
it if it's on a site I have tried it. This is my last resort.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Although you say it's 'new' the one thing you haven't tried seems to be
installing it on a second PC. Do you have a friend that would let you
install it on their PC just temporarily to prove the printer is OK or not?
Have you tried a second USB cable?

You did install the software BEFORE connecting the printer, didn't you?

 

[Vital Spark]

Cari...to answer your questions. The printer works ok. It did on this
computer before I did the clean install of Vista. No I did not install the
software before connecting the printer but I did try. That is exactly the
problem my computer does not recognise that there is a printer on the USB
port. I have uninstalled the 'uknown device' on the usb port & re-installed
it on every port that has power(some usb ports do not have power) but still
it will not recognise the prnter. I have no hubs or any other device attached
to the machine either. I downloaded from Epson the latest driver/cd install
prog but again when it gets the the part of the install process where it
needs to have a printer connected it does not find it.
I do appreciate you trying to help.