Well, I'm not that expert on fixing or troubleshooting printers. But just want to share my experience on how I fixed my printer to be detected again by my laptop. I currently have my Canon Pixma MP287 printer and one time, my laptop no longer can detect my printer. That's probably I was trying to install another printer to my laptop which affected my printer or I did something stupid.. Hehe!
What I needed was my printer drivers first.. Usually a printer should have it's CD driver... but since I lost it... I just downloaded it from the internet. You can just google it having the key words you need like "free Canon MP287 Printer drivers download" looking for the good drivers may take some time and figuring since there are sites which just fools around with you. Anyway... securing printer drivers is one important thing. If you already have one, best save it in an external drive or even a hard disk where you think you can back-up your files.
Then, cleaning and uninstalling unwanted drivers or connected programs to your printer has to be done. First off in Windows, one has to un-install all programs related to your computers and drivers as well. At times there are things that can not be easily removed, probably it was corrupted or something. To fully clean any files related to previous printer, I have to reboot my laptop and go to safe mode for Windows 7 (can be in XP, or Vista as well)... After booting in Safe Mode, I use "regedit" by going to MS DOS prompt or Command prompt then type "regedit" or in the search bar of start menu, just write "regedit".
Once entered in regedit, then you are facing a window, maybe a bit technical or scary cause once something is destroyed or manipulated in it, might cause your computer to malfunction. But anyway, it is good to explore and learn from it. So what do I do with this regedit? I search anything related to my printer and delete it... so example is my printer is Canon MP287 or MP280.... I search the word "Canon" (if I know there is no other Canon software or driver installed in my computer other than my printer)... then searching all through out the "registry" once found, I check, I read and by discretion if confirmed that it is connected to my printer, I delete it. then press "F3" a shortcut to search again the same previously entered word. Then if found I do the same process, check, confirm and delete. If the item can't be deleted, I just memorize it and skip on it. And if I again gone through it, I just skip on it. So everything connected to the "Canon" is to be deleted if can not just leave it. If done, then I think the computer is somewhat fresh and ready to be installed with the new drivers. YOU HAVE TO WAIT for the instruction of the program to give the "GO" signal of connecting the cable from the printer to the computer / laptop and putting the power to "ON"... Once you don't follow that instruction, then usually it goes berserk or the printer will not work properly or the computer does not detect it or something. At times, putting the cables on the right USB port makes it also a problem and usually printers like the USB Port with a 2.0 version... not the 3.0 something or else it will not detect it.
So that's it! Some experience I have on dealing with printers that computers might not be able to detect by computers or laptop. Feel free to comment or add up or tell me I'm wrong, that's fine... but do provide corrections so we can learn together. Thanks! and God bless! =D
