help w/ hp printer

[paydaymom]

Last week my daughter in law was doing something on my computer and a PSTA plug-in installer window kept popping up. she was going to get rid of it by removing some unnecessary programs. It got rid of the pop up but it also got rid of my printer (HP Officejet 6210 All in One) I have reinstalled it 4 times and it will not install properly. When I go to my Start button and then click on HP solution center, it is saying there are no HP Devices detected. I cannot scan to file or get a fax log or anything. I know it said that it was going to Program files/Hp .but it is not there when I go to look for it. Any suggestions? The printer works but it is not user friendly at all and I know I am missing some stuff.

[rjfvillarosa]

Is the printer detected and identified as a HP printer in Device Manager?

[glc]

You need to completely uninstall the HP printer and ALL of its software and physically disconnect it before attempting to reinstall it.

[paydaymom]

I did that. Unplugged it and uninstalled and then reinstalled and plugged back in when it tells me too.

[paydaymom]

Is the printer detected and identified as a HP printer in Device Manager?
I will have to check b/c before I reinstalled it the printer was not in the device manager, which I thought was weird. As soon as I get home from work I will look and see.

[rjfvillarosa]

What version of Windows are you using?
After you uninstalled everything, did Windows recognize "New Hardware" when you plugged the printer back in?

[paydaymom]

I am using windows xp and I didn't plug it back in until the software told me too.

[mairving]

Replacing a HP All-in-One can be a challenge. You definitely need to remove the HP software via control panel. You should probably also go into C:\Windows\system32\twain and remove all of the old twain drivers, reboot, re-install software, choose a different USB port as before and see if that works.

[rjfvillarosa]

I am a pain in the proverbial for not installing the bundled garbage you get on installation CD's. I always plug in the hardware and then the CD, when Windows detects the hardware and asks for the drivers I put the installation CD in and close it as soon as it opens, then I allow Windows to extract the required drivers from the CD.
I have only ever done this once with an "all in one" and much to the amazement of a few of the Mod's here it actually worked.
If I were you, whether or not it is in Device manager, I would completely uninstall everything associated with HP and your "all in one", then I would plug the printer back in just to see if it is detected. If it detects it, you can rule out a hardware problem associated with the:
Last week my daughter in law was doing something on my computer and a PSTA plug-in installer window kept popping up. she was going to get rid of it by removing some unnecessary programs. It got rid of the pop up but it also got rid of my printer
I think you might be looking at cleaning the registry with something like CCleaner.