winXP killed LPT1

[brockman]

Printer port worked ok under 98. Wiped hard drive and did a clean install of XP home. Totally lost the printer port and could not get XP to recognize it. I finally gave up and luckily the printer was also USB compatible, that worked. I admit that the machine barely met the minimum specs for XP, being a Dell P2 266 w/ 256mb ram. Is it XP, or is the machine just too darn old? Any one else run across this problem of losing LPT1?

[ben-the-slacker]

I don't know about the parallel port but my usb isn't working. I think I fried the chip when I connected it the wrong way, so I can't really blame XP for that. :-/

[NDC]

Brockman... Have you tried changing the setting for the LPT port in the BIOS? Windows may detect a new hardware and install the drivers for the LPT port... The way it does if you were to change from bi-directional to ECP mode... Give it a shot...