Printer won't print but its not the printer!

[Carpman]

Well, been strugling with this for days now. Have a HP psc 2115 all in one
printer thats always been fine. Now it wont print. every time I try to print
it recieves a page feed but does not print anything. I've tried Word, Wpad,
Excel and other programs but with same result. I have now completely
de-installed the printer and reinstalled it--several times. The first time it
resolved the issue but after turning off the pc and on the next day it re
appeared. I have downloaded the latest HP driver and accompanying progs from
HP site and applied all the fixes that are listed there--but to no avail.
When I try to "safely remove Hardware" I get the message "the device
PSC2100(dot4prt)cannot be stopped because the program is still accessing it".
(no programs running and nothing in the print que). I am running this on a
Dell 6000 laptop with MS XP MSE with service pack 3. One thought ..this seems
to have become a problem after I installed another (more recent) all in one
HP printer which I have subsequently deleted and removed but I cannot be sure
this is linked!! Can any one help??
Forgot to mention the printer works fine on my other laptop and desktop so I
know its not a printer fault as such.

Not sure if related but methinks it must be...Also if I turn off the driver
HPZ12 I can disconnect ok. but the problem (error message)resumes when I turn
that on again (using Admin Tools in control pannel) I have tried turning the
spooler off and on to no avail.

 

[Chuck]

There are at least two different ways you can attack the problem.
Use "Safe" mode to uninstall. This should prevent the PSC2100(dot4prt)
cannot be stopped because the program is still accessing it"

Another method is a bit more extreme.
This one involves uninstalling and re installing the USB drivers. This, for
some reason, removes and restores "links" between the USB system and the
various USB device drivers and the spool system. The possible difficulty is
that you can loose keyboard and mouse functionality until the USB drivers
are reinstalled. It is safest to have a ps2 port keyboard and serial mouse
available. I don't know if your laptop even has ps2 ports available. If not
there usually is BIOS support until the windows USB drivers are (hopefully)
automatically reinstalled after the next boot.

This is not intended to be a step by step-- rather it mearly identifies two
possible solutions.

 

[Carpman]

Thanks for taking the time Chuck. I tried using safe mode to remove the
entire printer software and this was successful. I then tried reinstalling it
all and it still has the same problems I outlined originally. I've deleted it
all again but am not sure how to go about deleting the USB drivers and I dont
have a PS2 keyboard or serial mouse and to be honest it worries me a bit.

 

[Carpman]

Still have the problem has anyone got any ideas please :-(

 

[Chuck]

You don't delete printers and multifunction devices, you uninstall them. If
you just delete such things as the printer drivers, the supporting registry
entries are still present to cause problems.

At this point, I'd suggest using the HP support web site to see if there is
any useful info or uninstall utilities that might apply to your situation.

Multifunction devices have unique driver peculiarities, due to two or more
"devices" attached and accessed via the same physical interface.

 

[Carpman]

Hi didn't meen to imply I had just deleted it! I did uninstall the software.
I have trawled the HP site and have found no cure even though I have tried
one or two things for problems sited but not exactly the same. I'm now
convinced this problem is a Windows device driver or software problem. I've
uninstalled the printer and used all the cleanups I can think of and then
reinstalled it and it still wont work. Its perfectly happy on another laptop
(another Dell with XP) and on a Dell desktop with XP.
When this happenned I had recently done a few updates on the machine MS
updates, Explorer from 7 to 8, Adobe reader from 7 to 9, Adobe flash player I
just wonder if any or one of these has screwed with a system config or file
somhow?

Still flailing in the dark I'm afraid!!

 

[Chuck]

One thing you might do is inspect the registry for any HP driver related
entries. This can be tedious, to say the least.
Many of HP's entries contain references to HP*** files.
Hopefully, this might tell you if there is anything left of the unwanted or
unsuccessful driver installs.
You should also use "safe mode" (control panel, etc.) to inspect the USB
system configuration, and look for any oddities or "flagged" entries.

The usual XP USB printer/multifunction problem has to do with USB & "port"
assignments. The deletion of the USB port and controller drivers (manual)
and reinstallation (normally automatic on reboot) breaks existing "links"
between the old assigned ports and the various XP printer related "modules".
This allows the automatic install at boot to rebuild the module chain, and
(when properly installed) the printer drivers to link properly. This has
been an on and off again problem with XP for some time.

 

[Carpman]

Chuck -thank you once again for your patience and effort I will endeavour to
follow your suggestion to re load the USB drivers unfortunatly cant do this
for a week as am going away but I will let you know the result as soon as I
return to the UK.
Thanks

 

[Javanut]

Hey Chuck, I'm having a similar problem. My printer will print everything
but pages created in Microsoft Works or Word. In the past it HAS printed.
Now just a blank page. Its not the printer..like I said I can't print
anything off the internet. Any suggestions would be appreciated...I am NOT
computer savy I'm afraid....

Java

 

[Lem]

Hi didn't meen to imply I had just deleted it! I did uninstall the software.
I have trawled the HP site and have found no cure even though I have tried
one or two things for problems sited but not exactly the same. I'm now
convinced this problem is a Windows device driver or software problem. I've
uninstalled the printer and used all the cleanups I can think of and then
reinstalled it and it still wont work. Its perfectly happy on another laptop
(another Dell with XP) and on a Dell desktop with XP.
When this happenned I had recently done a few updates on the machine MS
updates, Explorer from 7 to 8, Adobe reader from 7 to 9, Adobe flash player I
just wonder if any or one of these has screwed with a system config or file
somhow?

Still flailing in the dark I'm afraid!!

How to uninstall printer drivers may not be intuitively obvious. You may
have left remnants behind which are not getting replaced when you
reinstall. See http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm