No Printer.. can't install

[ChaosControl]

Something is strange. My harddrive crashed 2 days ago, and I reisntalled everything.. blah blah. Except, my printer won't install. Nor will XP Pro detect it. I open Control Panel-> Printers and Fax. And click Add Printer, it pops up an error message that reads: Operation could not be completed. So I go and MANUALLY isntall my printer. Choose the company, model, all that. As it finishes the process, it tells me the add new hardware wirad cannot complete adding new hardware, because there was an error connecting with the RPC server. I go in and check the services that i tweak, and made sure RPC was on. it was. I'm confused as to why the dumb thing won't detect it.

[lil Jimmie]

What brand/model of printer is it and is a USB printer?

[ChaosControl]

Nope, its a regular (Parallel Port?) Printer. It's a Hewlett-Packard 697c. It's worked before without any fuss.

[lil Jimmie]

Does it show up in the device manager? If so, remove it and try again.

[Tuf]

I would make sure the cable is secure on both ends and the printer is turned on. We have the same printer with XP Pro on my wife's computer and if I remember correctly I had to download new drivers from HP to get it to work correctly.

You might also check in the bios the printer port is enabled as set to ECP. You might also read the directions on HP's site as it seems they had a specific order to install the drivers and programs with XP.

[ChaosControl]

Alright, I'll surf around hp.com. Except I never had to do such before, and it worked fine. I went to HP earlier today, looked for drivers for WindowsXP, and it didn't give me one, but rather, instructions for using the one preloaded with XP, so I figured that was the newest driver.

Jimmie, it doesn't show up in device manager. Sometimes I get an "Unknown Parallel Device" I try updating the drivers for that, and it can't find any. (duh)

I would use the ones that came with the printer, as old as they are. But whenever I install them, XP tells me the drivers aren't logo tested/digitally signed, and then i get a mess of errors after that. So many that I doubt it successfully installed.

I'll check the bios, but again, it worked before, and I haven't changed the bios for awhile

I checked the cord, it was fine. I doubted it was the problem because the connection was good enough to detect it.

Thanks guys, keep em coming

[wintomato]

Hi Chaoscontrol
did you resolve your problem?
my sister's pc is is having the exact same problem. It was working fine, Time computers took it away to replace the dvd drive, it came back and xp won't detect it. Exact same message you got and some others
"RPC service is unavailable", "error enumerating the printers in this system" and "print spooler service is not running"
I have tried starting them from services but this isn't working.
would appreciate finding out if and how you resolved the problem... we don't really want to go through sending the computer back again.
thanks