Windows ME/USB printer problems

[cmp1223]

Well, I was working on this old HP pavillion with tons of crap: adsupported screensaver, spyware, trojans, adware. Installed AVG, Spybot, Ad-Aware, a-squared (MS antispyware and Ewido don't work with ME damnit!) Debating wether to install personal firewall because a) i think there D-link router has one and b) i doubt they could work it.

Anyway, i can't get the printer to work. Even after installeg the HP spftware, the found new harware box still appears. Is there a way to turn this off, because i want to try something with this not popping up. Also, now i need to find just the HP drivers. HP only officially supports this stupid .exe software suite that includes the drivers, but they're not working!

 

[cmp1223]

anyone?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: cmp1223
anyone?

[*]First if you have a stubborn virus the only way to really remove it is with a boot time scan. You will need a bootable Antivirus CD and a Floppy Drive with the latest definintions on a 3.5 1.44mb floppy disc. The method is 99.9999% effective vs 80-90% for a windows based virus scan.


[*]If that does not help, the best advice I can give (except actually going over to your home) is to get a bootdisk and reformat the hard-drive. The way you described it makes it sound like there is almost no hope left for the current installation of Windows.

For great and good 'ol trusty Floppy Images go to http://www.bootdisk.com/
For a Utility CD that can reformat your hard drive, check your ram, test your CPU, format hard drives, diagnose errors, etc go to http://ultimatebootcd.com/

Both sites are awesome and their disks' work well.

 

[sniperruff]

maybe your usb ports are not working properly. try them with a thumb drive.

 

[cmp1223]

No, it wasn't that bad. It just was an old couple that doesn't know the first thing about virus protection. My main concern was if anyone knew of usb problems after trojans/worms or the like. Also, if anyone knew how to shutdown autodetect.

Can you tell me more about a boot time scan? Can it work with a free scanner like AVG, AntiVir, or Avast? How do i set this up? Will it work with WinME?

EDIT: that is the weird thing, sniper. The find new harware wizard pops up but it still never initializes the printer. THeir usb camera works. I thought it might be the cable, but it does pop up and say "found hp 2210" After that, it doesn't work!

 

[xgsound]

I see 2 seperate possibilities. One is loss of windows functions from previous malware crashes. Another is installing printer drivers with other programs (A/V, firewall, anti spyware, ect.) starting with windows.

First physically disconnect from the internet, then stop programs from starting with windows.

Often cleaning out malware leaves behind small parts of windows crippled even after the malware is gone. Usually this can be corrected by removing hardware in device manager and allowing it to redetect in the correct order. For printers I would try the USB and LPT ports initally and see if that gets things going.

Uninstall the printer driver, and try again with no internet and few or no programs starting with windows. Some USB drivers require the printer to be either attached or not ... or power on or not ... or reboot or not. This seems to vary between brands, models and OS

Lastly restart your programs with windows before reconnecting the internet.


Jim

 

[cmp1223]

i try that, thanks a bunch!

 

[cmp1223]

It turned out to be the printer. I thin its cache/memory or whatever was messed up. Even after i unplugged it it didn't work. I had to print some log file to get it going.