Hi everybody! I have not been in this forum for some time. My computer has Vista Home Premium on it. (I wish that it had 98). This is not why I'm posting here. My 88-year old mother has a computer. Last week she told me that something had gone wrong with the computer. When I asked her what was on the screen she replied that the letter x completely filed the box for her password. She said that she couldn't get the letters in the password box to go away and so she turned off the computer. I said that I'd come today and see what I could do so I came to see her this afternoon after grocery shopping. When I turned on the computer, it behaved normally (the box came up with her username and I typed in her password. From there I was taken to the desktop and I clicked on the OE icon on the desktop and OE opened and e mail downloaded. No problem here. I had sent her some info on a plant that she recently got and we were going to print out the info so that she could have a hard copy of it and delete the e mail. OK, now the problem appears. I turned on the printer and clicked the Print icon and then as usual the printer started to print. Two blank pages. We tried again. Two more blank pages. I tried the printer troubleshooter, but got no help from that except the one item suggested that the printer possibly needed to be reset and I should shut it down and then wait 10 seconds and restart it. I did this and there was another blank page. I told Mama that I remembered that the last time the printer was not printing I fixed the problem by uninstalling and then reinstalling the printer. This is what I had intended to do. However, I deleted the printer. Mama found the printer driver. The printer is an HP Deskjet 840c. After Mama found the driver, I put the CD in the CD drive and then it ran. However, the printer did not install. I received the following message: "The printer cannot be installed (you should use the setup program when installing this printer). The driver or the INF file may be damaged. Restart Windows and try again."



The message was without the quotes. I did restart Windows and then I tried to install the printer but I received the same message. I went to the owner's manual of the printer and looked in the section "What to do when things go wrong" and I found several things but none of them fit the problem.



I told Mama that I would see what the INF file was because I had never heard of one and I looked on the internet and I did find that the INF file is connected to autorun. I did not have time to get any further than this as it was getting late so I told Mama that I would contact SAF and let you guys know about the problem and you'd tell me how to fix it. At least we accomplished one thing--we deleted all the old e mail. Thanks for any help that you may provide.



There is another thing that happened today that may or may not have a thing to do with this problem. I had sent Mama some info on a plant that she recently got and we were going to print out the info but we couldn't because the printer wouldn't work. Later on, I went back to this e mail and I was going to try to print it (this was before I knew about the error message). When I went to the e mail that had the plant info before, all of a sudden it disappeared and there was nothing there but a blank e mail.



Mama would appreciate any help you could give me (and so will I).


Update: I finally realized that I had deleted the printer instead of uninstalling it and so I uninstalled the printer from the Add/Remove Programs list but still I received the message about the driver not loading.

Hi Jeannie...can you confirm that this is a Widows 98 machine?

If it is, I think the best way forward is a system restore. With the uninstall/delete/reinstall of the driver package, some registry keys may have been corrupted. From what I read about this printer, it only takes a single incorrect registry key to make the printer software uninstallable.

1. Start your computer, press and hold the CTRL key, then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Windows 98 Startup menu.

2. At the MS-DOS prompt, type cd\windows\command, and then press ENTER. Where windows is the name of the folder in which Windows is installed.

3. At the C: prompt, type scanreg /restore, and then press ENTER.

4. Select the previous registry you want to restore (one that predates the date the problem started), and then press ENTER. NOTE: A properly working registry has the word "Started" next to the date.

5. When you receive notification that you restored a properly working registry, press ENTER to restart your computer.

Let us know if that works.

Hi Ed,

I was sure that this was in my message but I discovered this morning that I didn't let anybody know. Mama's computer has ME on it. Will your directions be the same?

Hi Jeannie...yes, the directions for ME are the same.

Thanks for letting me know Ed. I will try this tomorrow if I can.

Hi Ed,
I am out at Mama's right now and I have just tried your solution. Mama read the directions to me after I had copied them down on paper. We didn't get past step 1. Her computer won't boot into safe mode. It shuts down and restarts OK, but when I press and hold CTRL, what I see is not the ME startup menu, but a blsck screen with the following error message on it:

Error 0210

Stuck key 42

We are currently at a standstill. Can you help? Many thanks.

Try the F8 key and see if you can get into Safe Mode.

Hi Dino,

Thanks. I did try the F8 key after I could not get into safe mode the way Ed suggested and I got the same error message as when I tried starting the computer and holding down CTRL. What could be wrong now?

HI Jeannie...do you have another keyboard you can use?

Do you have a bootdisk (floppy) for that computer?

Hi Ed,
I have my keyboard here if that's any help. Her computer is in another location but I can bring this keyboard out to her home if necessary. However, she doesn't have a bootdisk for her computer. How do I make one? I'll wait to hear from you before trying anything.

hi jeanie
get a winme boot disk here.
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Hi Surfer,
Thanks for the link.

Update: I went to the site and I located the link for me. I saw two links for me. One is OEM and the other is custom. Which do I use? Mama's system is not a homebuilt one if that's any help. She bought it from HP.

use the oem one.

Thanks Surfer. Now all I have to do is to find a blank floppy disk. I used to have a whole box of them. I know that I didn't use them all. I'll check back with you later when I have made the bootdisk.

Hi again Surfer,

I have made the bootdisk. The first two trys I kept getting errors so I changed floppy disks and the third time was the charm as they say. i have made a bootdisk! Now for the dumb question: What do I do with it?

After I take the bootdisk out to Mama's and put in her floppy drive, do I follow Ed's instructions or do I do something before that?

Hi again! I did some digging and found out what to do with my newly created bootdisk. I am supposed to follow Ed's directions. Duh!

Anyway, I'll post again tomorrow afternoon after I have visited Mama.

Hi everybody!

I am out at Mama's now. I tried the bootdisk and I got an invalid disk error in safe mode. I did finally get into safe mode without the bootdisk, but I received the same error message when I tried to reinstall the printer. I have a call in to the tech support for the ISP here and somebody will call in a little while. Thanks for the help everybody. I will continue to keep you advised. The tech at the Glitch Guys said that the message that I am getting meant that the computer can't find a driver that is on the CD. I do hope that the CD isn't damaged.

If necessary, download the driver file from HP....

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/printers/software/840-enu-win9x_ME.exe

Thanks jim. The ISP called, but they called my home and I still don't know what they said. I will keep everybody advised as to progress. Thanks again!

Jeannie

Latest on situation:

I called the computer tech for the ISP here yesterday. The ISP misunderstood where I was (I called from home here and later called from Mama's and they thought that I was home so they called here yesterday at 1:40 only I wasn't here--I was out at Mama's.



When I returned home yesterday I checked my messages and found the message from the computer tech. Of course it was after 5:00 (I stayed until 6:00 PM yesterday). I called the tech this morning first thing and he answered the phone himself and I gave him the error message and he said that he could fix the problem remotely. I told him that I was at my home and the problem was out at Mama's home but I'd call her and let her know that I'd gotten in touch with him and I'd ask Mama to pick me up yet again. I did get Mama (just after 7:00 this morning) and told her that I'd gotten in touch with Tom (computer tech) and that he said that I should be out where she was and would she mind coming to get me again. She came between 8:00 and 8:15 and took me out to her home and I called Tom and let him know that I was out at Mama's after I turned on the computer and the printer. He told me to go to the ISP's website and from there to go to the Glitch Guys site and on that site to click Help and from there to click yet another thing and finally I was to click his name and he was in. He worked on the computer some and reinstalled the printer and the same error message came up and I told him that this error message was what I had been getting so he installed the printer using something on the CD. We printed a demo page that came out blank and a test page that also came out blank. Then he asked me how old the cartridges were. I had no idea, but I thought that they were at least 2 years old and he told me that she needed new cartridges so we are going to Office Depot next month when we both have money. Mama will buy her cartridges and I will help her to pick out a new keyboard. Thanks everybody for all your help. I will let you know what happens next month after the printer gets its new cartridges.

Until this happens Jeannie you can try going to Control Panel, open the Printers and Faxes applet, right-click on the HP Deskjet 840c icon, and then choose Properties. I’m not sure about this certain model, but from the properties sheet click your way around until you find the ink levels in your cartridges; just make sure that you don’t make any accidental changes to your printer’s properties while you’re there (you can always use the Cancel button when in doubt).

Thanks Dino.