Printer problems iMac to HP 4100

Question

Printer problems iMac to HP 4100

This past week I have had serious problems trying to get my Imac to print to a HP Laserjet 4100. Parallel port to USB.

Driver version 18.4

THe Imac is less than a year old and runs on Lion. I have had intermittent problems ongoing but this time it keeps showing messages -Not connected.

Usually when I go into preferences and click hold, on and off a couple of time or delete document and try again it would work OK but this time I have deleted printer, reset printing system etc numerous times and it still does not print.

Sometimes when I unplug and re-plug in the USB connection it does not even recognise the printer is plugged in.

I have tried connecting the printer to a completely different computer and it appeard to work ok so it does not seem to be the cable at fault.

Does anyone have a similar problem and more important does anyone have a solution.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 25, 2012 1:39 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jun 25, 2012 1:46 PM in response to patriciainish

Mac OS X: About the Reset Printing System feature ...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1341?viewlocale=en_US

10.5/10.6/10.7 instructions...

In System Preferences>Fax & Print, Right click or Control+click on the Printers list Sidebar, choose Reset Printing System.

if you hold option and click the "-" tab it resets the printing system.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031215144430486

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions.

Any devices that previously appeared in your Printer List and Fax List will need to be added again after resetting the printing system.

Resetting the printing system in Mac OS X 10.5.x+++

1. To use the Reset Printing System feature in Mac OS X 10.5.x, follow these steps:

2. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.

3. Choose Print & Fax from the View menu.

4. Control-click on list of printers on the left side of the window, then choose "Reset printing system" from the contextual menu. If you don't see a list of printers, Control-click on the text "Click + to add a printer or fax" and select "Reset printing system..."     As an alternative, if you currently have one or more printers listed, you can Option-click the "-" (Remove printer) button.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1341

Reboot.

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Answer 2

Jun 25, 2012 1:56 PM in response to BDAqua

I've already Re-set the printing system many times.

Exactly what do you mean by "

Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions."

Can you give me the step by step instructions for this bit please

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jun 25, 2012 2:09 PM in response to patriciainish

Restart or bootup while holding the SHIFT key, this should boot into Safe Mode & ask for login.

Have you never used Disk Utility before? Can you find it?

The option we want is on the bottom left in this pic, not the ones the arrows point to, Repair Permissions...

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