Connecting an HP Laserjet 4 Parallel Printer via USB using Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit - HELP!

The Belkin F5U002 cable I have requires no special driver.  This has worked great for many years with a number of devices when other cables have failied.  I do not know it this model is still available.

Alan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

Alan - this was the key for me. I have a LaserJet 4, a Dynex cable from Best Buy. In the control panel I used the USB001 port, downloaded the drive for the Laser and when I unchecked the bidirectional tab the printer worked. I'm unsure what bidirectional means but you have the solution. Thank you.  Like many others who have posted, I'd hate to give up my reliable LaserJet 4. Tom Oberhofer

You do not have a parallel port on the machine.  Anything sent to the parallel port device should fail on writes.   Change the port to the USB00n port created when you plugged in the cable.  You will see the port listed in the ports list.  This will typically be USB001 when you do not have any otherUSB attached printers.

Alan Morris Windows Printing Team;

hi schnitgen,

I have an HP LasrJet 6L on Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit that had the same problem. I bought a PCI expansion card that has a parallel port on it and installed it. (I assume this is a desktop machine) and then I did this :

These are the steps I went through to the best of my recollection yesterday and today:

I uninstalled the LPT Port in device manager and disconnected the printer from it.

I then went into the registry searched for prnhp001 (the info file for my printer) Yours may be prnhp???

   You can just search for your exact printer name. That's probably safer.

Remove the printers that it finds. (NOT the install locations) Just the ones that are your exact printers in the registry. Mine was "HP LaserJet 6L", ""HP LaserJet 6L (Copy 1)" etc.

Reboot

Let windows find the LPT Port

Reboot

Force the LPT Port to LPT1 if not there

Reboot

Shut Down

Attach the printer to the LPT Port

Start up

Windows found the printer and did not install the Icon in device manager (Imagine that...)

Reinstall the printer from the add printer wizard

Forced an update form windows update and replaced the printer driver

Share the printer with a DOS compatible Share name (No more than 8 characters)

Set the Location of the shared printer to your computers computer name

Finished the wizard

You should now be able to see the share name on the network

Right clicked on your computer name in device manager and view the print queue

Delete the printer that is NOT copy 1 or the last one you installed from queue

Reboot

Open device Manager

Printer should be there now.

Print a test page to make sure it all works

Wal-ah... NOT AN HP PROBLEM!!!!!!

I Hope this helps .. I've spent hours on this....

This worked perfectly for me with an HP Laserjet 6 and a Laserjet 2200D with a cheap, generic (Plexus) USB to Parallel lead Link: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130599

The only difficulty I had was the length of the lead (too short)).

I just had to sign up just to say thank you, your efforts are appreciated.

Mark.

Installing Parallel PCI with Windows 7 - simpler method?

EDIT: I managed to get the printer working (with one or two niggles) using the method below, but have encountered another problem, in that Windows now won't start from a cold boot and demands a system restore, thus knocking out the parallel port. I've been having motherboard problems (SATA drives not recognised on boot-up!) and am about to replace the mobo, but am a bit stumped as to why the parallel port installation is preventing Windows from booting up. Maybe somebody can see where I've gone wrong.

Original post:

Hello Peeps!

I had a similar problem (for search engine purposes: HP Laserjet 6P not recognised by Windows 7 64-Bit + Windows error message: USB device not recognised - Code 43 + Drivers not present).

I built a new PC at Christmas, installed Windows 7 64-Bit and Office 2007 and for about 10 days was able to print on my much-loved HP Laserjet 6P with no problems. The printer was connected to the PC via a USB-Parallel cable adapter.

Then the gremlins woke up and after a brief struggle, disabled my printing altogether.

Windows was simultaneously recognising the printer as being installed and yet not recognising the USB device and telling me the drivers were not present (they were!). Various attempts to cure this failed, and Microsoft Tech Support gave it their best shot but were also unable to help.

I followed Doch's suggestion of installing a PCI card. The one I plumped for was the "Sweex Parallel Port Card PCI  PU005V2". (http://www.sweex.com/en/assortiment/connectivity/pci-cards/PU005V2) The web page advertises that these are Windows 7-compatible. Turns out my local computer shop had the cheapest around, but eBay has them for about £15.

Physically installing the card was a breeze - simply locate the card in the PCI slot, one screw to hold it in place, and you're on the way. I found that my path to getting it running was slightly different to Schnitgen's, and didn’t involve going into the registry 

• you'll just have to see which helps the most. Here's what happened after I fitted the card:

1.) Switched on PC. The card then showed in a pop-up as "unrecognised". Note that having a card fitted but not fully installed with drivers may slow or impede other computer operations (my Internet Explorer started failing to download some pages I visited, but it could have been a coincidence).

2.) Windows 7 quietly downloaded a firmware update without me knowing about it ("MosChip PCI Multi-IO Controller" - Moschip is the Manufacturer of the chip that powers the Sweex PCI card). So check your Windows Update Manager (History) to see if this is there and click to download it if the download hasn’t started automatically.

3.) When the update has finished downloading, you may need to shut down the PC to execute the installation.

4.) Reboot and check Windows Update again. You may find that another Update is available: ("MosChip PCI Parallel Port"). Download and then install this update. This did not require a restart in my case.

5.) When the update is complete, take a deep breath and connect your parallel printer cable to the new port.

6.) Windows should detect the device and the correct port automatically and update/install drivers, and will tell you that it is doing so (finally seeing all the downloads taking place was quite exciting after so many negative responses!). Click on "Update Driver" in the dialogue box if Windows gives you an opportunity to do so. In my case the port that was found was “LPT3”, not “LPT1”. Any port in a storm!

7.) Take another deep breath and print a test document.

This worked for me – I have not tested it for long but have at least managed to do a few satisfactory test prints.

The only thing that is slightly frustrating is that printing seems to take longer than it did previously (printer waits for longer before beginning to print first page). Might be because the parallel is somehow slower than the old USB.

I am still not sure what caused the problem – I have a suspicion that the cheap and nasty cable I was using to connect my parallel printer cable to the USB port was to blame, as it felt like poor quality and some of the info on the driver disk was in hieroglyphics! I am convinced that I now have a more secure connection – although one day I might see if a good quality adapter cable works for me.

I hope this helps you guys – please let me know!

Blessings,

Jeremy.