Hello, All!

A Thinkpad (T21) is having trouble communicating to a USB printer connected via a 4-port USB 2.0, pccard. Not sure what my friend did.. but I thought that maybe they unplugged the USB cable and put it back in the card in a different slot on the pccard. Could that have affected the communications to the printer? My friend remembers removing the card once or twice, but they don't remember if they removed the usb cables that were already plugged into it. A system Restart or Reboot does not fix the problem. Everything else plugged in other USB ports on the card (an LED-lighted USB cable, and an external CD-RW) work fine.

The setup worked fine for a long time.. now this.

Did the printer work with this configuration before your friends played with it? If so, try plugging in your printer directly to your USB drive on the thinkpad. Even though the printer says it requires USB 2.0, most printers are backwards compatible with USB 1.0. If the printer is not recognized directly connected to your thinkpad, then there is something wrong with the printer. Hope you fix it.
Gael

The TP and printer simply would not cooperate with the single USB port at the back of the TP. That is why we decided to try using a USB 2.0 pccard since the person wanted to attach other things too (a camera, extra cable, a cd-rw unit, etc..) anyway. The printer worked wonderfully with the pccard right away! Before then, I tested the printer on another pc and it worked fine too. So... it wasn't necessarily a printer fault at that time. Now, the situation might be different? I'll consider uninstalling the printer and re-installing it to see if that makes any difference. Now that I recall, we had to do that once before because I *think* I moved the printer cable to another USB port on the card - accidentally, without taking notice in which port it was in originally. Maybe it's the same situation here?

So.. this makes me wonder.. I thought it didn't matter what port a USB device was plugged and replugged into. Could this be a limitation specific to a particular pccard manufacturer and only to pccards? I've never heard that this could be problem.

Hmm... sounds like a Windows flubup...

Unplug both the printer and the PC card.
Open Device Manger, and go to the "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" section.
Plug the printer into the ThinkPad directly.
Refresh Device Manager.
Delete anything that wasn't already in the USB controllers list.
Unplug the printer, and plug in the PC card.
Refresh Device Manager again, and delete the stuff that just showed up in USB controllers.
Reboot with the PC card plugged in. It'll install new hardware.
Reboot yet again with the printer plugged in where you're going to use it. If you want to plug into the ThinkPad (to leave ports open on the PC card), plug it in there. If you want to plug it into the PC card, plug it in there. It'll install new hardware yet again.

Note: the reboots may not be necessary, but if it doesn't work, you'll have to start over. The reboots are insurance that it will work. And, if it doesn't work, I think it's time for a Windows reinstall.

Sounds like it is windows related, but before messing with windows which can take some time, try it in all 4 usb ports, and then if no luck, try to plug in the printer to another computer. This will at least tell you if the printer has a problem. If the printer works, attack bhtooefr's list.
Good luck.
Gael

FWIW, when I borked the printer drivers on this X21, it took about 5 minutes to fix, not counting reboots (which didn't fix anything. I didn't do a reboot when I actually did what fixed it, but I recommended one for you because it often makes things work better...)

I'd say about 10 minutes if you don't do the reboots, 20 if you do (depends on how long your T21 takes to boot).

Also, these directions are for Windows 2000, and will also apply to XP. If you're running 95, 98, or ME, then they may not work as well, but try to apply them as best you can. Also, on those OSes, you will HAVE to reboot when my guide says to reboot, IIRC.