bjank

I have a perfectly managed w98se/wxp (sp3) multiboot system. On w98se my printers are working well. On the over hand on wxp they stopped working few days ago with no meaningfull reason. I remember that I was switching on my TechniSat card and, as allways when I do that computer resets automaticly. After booting it runs chkdsk and rearange some files.
The messages when I try to print are:
HP840C: The system cannot find the path specified
CutePDFwriter: The system cannot find the path specified
Microsoft Office Document Image Writer: A StartDocPrinter call was not issued
Microsoft XPS Document Writer: A StartDocPrinter call was not issued
Reinstaling drivers have not resolved the problem.
Lucky guess?

justpassingby

Hi bjank and welcome to TSF !

Run chkdsk /R on the XP drive (start => run => chkdsk c: /R if it's c:). You'll be prompted to restart the computer. Tell us if it found any errors.

Go to start => run and type services.msc. Check that the printer spooler service is set on automatic and started.

Are they local printers or shared printers ? Go to the start menu => printers and faxes (under settings if you use the classic menu). Do you see your printers at all in the list ? Click on view => details. Is the state set to "ready" for all printers ? Right-click one of the printers => delete. Restart the computer and check that XP redetects it. Retry to print on that printer.

Check the aforementioned path to CutePDFWriter and HP840C and see if the related folders in c:\program files\ still exist.

Uninstall and reinstall cutePDFWriter and the HP bundled software.

Do you have the XP CD ?

I'll move your thread to the printer support section.

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Posting system specs

bjank

Checking wxp partition gave result in replacing a large number of bad clusters especially in dllcache folder. The other suggestions from justpassingby unfortunatley have no effect on printing ability. Even after deleting and successfuly redetecting HP840C printer by OS, I'm not able to print on them. By the way, I don't knew what path (from where) have to be checked. Reinstaling is not helpfull. Thanks for help, I'm opend for any other suggestions.

justpassingby

Bad clusters on the drive could mean your hard drive is dying, especially if new ones reappear once in a while. I'd run the related HDD manufacturer's diagnostic utility on it as soon as you can.

Do you have the original XP install CD or is this a brand computer with XP preinstalled ?

Are they local or shared printers ?

Have you uninstalled and reinstalled CutePDF and the HP bundled software ?

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bjank

Hi, it’s me again.
I do not have problem with reappearing of new bad clusters. I think that when I enabled my satellite receiver card (Technisat) in device manager, it caused system crash and auto reboot, after which bad clusters appeared.
This happens only when I enable Technisat PC card, which I have to disable because I have noticed that computer crash if ethernet card and satellite card are present together on the motherboard.
The printers won’t work even if you uninstall and reinstall them, and only meaningful reason OS tells me is: The system cannot find the path specified.
So, if you maybe knew how to help OS to find the “forgotten” path, we are on the right track.
I have XP install CD but don’t tell me that I need to reinstall OS.
Thanks anyway justpassingby!

justpassingby

Please run the HDD diagnostic tool that corresponds to your hard drive, better safe than sorry. Bad clusters are not supposed to happen at all. Go to the device manager (start => run => devmgmt.msc) and expand disk drives to find the model of your drive then google with that model to find the brand. Burn the DOS bootable CD and run the long/extended test.

For the third time, are your printers local (attached to your computer) or shared (attached to another computer of the network) ?

You can use the system file checker or do a repair install to repair Windows and keep all your data and settings without reinstalling but you'll need an XP SP3 CD. Google with "slipstream SP3" to learn how you can create one.

Go to start => run and type sfc /scannow (mind the space after sfc). Don't do anything while it is running (should take 30 minutes at max). If it asks for the XP CD insert your newly created XP SP3 CD. It may sometimes ask for an XP pro CD on an XP Home installation. Just click retry, it'll copy the file anyway but it can be tedious.

If you want to go the repair install route backup the content of your my documents folder and the files that are on the desktop to stay on the safe side. Nothing wrong should happen to them but as I said before better safe than sorry.

Enter the BIOS at startup (repeatedly press del or look for some "press xx to enter setup" message) and change the boot order priority to CD-rom first. Press enter when prompted to boot from the XP CD. Press enter to "setup windows now", accept the licence agreement, select your windows installation and press 'R' to "repair the selected installation".

You may need to reinstall one program or the other if they stop working (shouldn't happen but...) but all your files and settings will be untouched.

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bjank

Well, almost hell. After performing a thorough system partition test with excellent Maxtor tool, I was relieved because it reported no error, but I have found that the drive was in slave mode by mistake and corrected that. Then I went to slipstreaming SP3 into XP install CD. With courage I preformed sfc /scannow which was tedious as you said.

Unfortunately, the only result of this last action was very unstable and slow system, so I tried system recovery and partially succeeded in that, but I have had to manually reinstall some drivers and repair .NET Framework in order to make some programs work.

Because I’m afraid that repairing XP installation would create more problems, I will not do that.

The printers are local. I deleted them all, but I don’t know the procedure to uninstall drivers as well. So, after rebooting, OS detects HP 840C printer if it is attached to computer. If not, Printers and faxes reports that it is offline.

justpassingby

I don't follow you here. If these are local printers how do you expect your computer to detect them when they're not connected to the computer ?

Are your printers USB printers ? plug one printer at a time directly in an USB port at the back of the computer, don't use USB hubs or extension cables.

sfc /scannow shouldn't have had any impact on the speed of your system, especially with an SP3 disk on an SP3 system. How much free space do you have remaining on the system partition ? Have you defragmented the hard drive recently ? Had you restarted the computer after running sfc /scannow ? To stay on the safe side you should restart XP every time you make changes to some system files or uninstall/reinstall a device or program.

System restore will undo all the latest updates and changes to the system files. Make sure you connect to Windows update to reinstall the last updates.

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bjank

Solved by Matija ZAGOREC from Sofia Microsoft EMEA Consumer Technical Support.

Proposed solution was to delete two files with extension *.spl and *.shd located in C:\Windows\Sistem32\Spool\Printers. Before you have to stop Print Spooler service.

I have slightly modified this by deleting whole folder with this two files in it and than after rebooting reinstall printer drivers.

justpassingby

Thanks a lot for sharing the solution bjank, I marked your thread as solved.

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Posting system specs