Solved Printer not connecting over network/permissions changed

[greensmurfet]

Hello,

My printer worked fine up until a few days ago. It is an HP B210a setup over the network with it's own IP address. My roommate started printing on it without asking me. He said it was an "accident" but I'm not sure how that could be the case. Anyways, I tried searching for a solution, like a password and in my haste I changed the permissions without thinking first. I made ChaCha(admin), me, have full permission and denied everyone else. Boom, printer no longer showed up in devices and printers. Spent all day yesterday installing and uninstalling the drivers. Used HP's troubleshooting utilities to no avail. When my roommate came home and turned on his computer a few days later, the print jobs I had sent started printing through his computer. He removed the device from his computer but that didn't help either.

The printer shows up under Device Manager>Imaging Devices but not under Devices and Printers. HP's diagnostic utility comes up with 2 errors, the first is that the driver is conflicting which makes no sense since I am downloading the driver straight from their website, using their software, and two it shows the printer as offline. I've used the recommended software etc., to try to do a fresh install. The printer shows up when you go to print something but as offline. Did my roommate hijack my printer or did I mess up by changing the permissions to only me. Why, as the admin, can I not see/communicate with my printer? Is there a way to set the permissions back to default since uninstalling/installing isn't doing the trick? Thanks for the help.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello and welcome greensmurfet now I am assuming the Toshiba has a wifi card my old L550 does and I print via wifi and/or Ethernet cable.
So have you tried connecting via wifi?? Having said that I think it might be an idea to update the WLAN driver for your machine before you try. To do that you will need to find which wifi card it is usinfg and you can do that by using this ditty of mine
Using HW Info
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic.
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
Open each + down into the component itself and then click on it - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that device. See pic for example.
Use PART B: and check the network section to see what brand it is see my pic
NB when you go searching for drivers for your machine you will need to quote the PART NO into the search window - again see my pic

First up though you could try running these
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html < if necessary include the /f and /r in the command line as per Option2
or even run a system restore

 

[torchwood]

Try a restore point prior to your roommates use.
Then set up a password protected Homegroup.

Roy

 

[greensmurfet]

ICIT2LOL: I said in my post that it was on the network so I am trying to connect via wifi. It was working via wifi just fine until what I explained happened. My laptops wifi is working fine so I won't be checking for any updates as I have just recently updated my drivers. Thanks for the reply though.

torchwood: I'll try that and post back if it is resolved or not. Thanks for the reply as well.

 

[greensmurfet]

torchwood: Yeah... my oldest restore point is for the 24th. This took place the morning of the 23rd.. Needless to say I went into system protection and increased the allocated restore point space on my hard drive. This sucks. Any other ideas? Thanks

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well I did suggest a system restore in my original post or did you miss that??

Now to find a previous restore point have you looked in the right place - see pic

 

[greensmurfet]

ICIT2LOL: I did check the box when I looked for the restore point. Furthest back is the 24th.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

That is a nuisance I don't expect you have done any system images by any chance? or make a back up disk at some stage?

 

[greensmurfet]

I have not done any system images or backups as I just did a clean restore on the laptop a few weeks ago. Nothing was wrong with it. Just cluttered and wanted to start fresh. If I have to I can do a restore again but it's a lot of work getting all the programs back on and everything updated.

I installed registry finder and have a list of registry keys that were changed the morning I messed with the permissions. I'm not sure what to look for and I haven't had the time to do the research.

Thanks again.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well as general rule those registry cleaners call them what you will do not really what they claim to do. The only registry program I use is included in CCleaner and I find it does a reasonably good job and I always back up what it finds before applying the fix/es because they can be merged back into the registry after the fix and if things are not working out.

Another thing is that the registry is not something to be altered/changed unless one is confident in what they are doing and I only apply fixes or changes as per some that are in the tutorials which can for example make the machine run faster and more efficiently. One tutorial if you are interested at some stage is this
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11728-optimize-windows-7-a.html

As for the initial problem I am at a loss now as to what to do apart from what I have already suggested. It is very hard when one is not sitting in front of the machine as in your case - unless the problem is very obvious - to work on it. .

 

[torchwood]

back up

Just a thought does your AV do a cloud back-up.

Roy

 

[greensmurfet]

Well thanks for the help. I'll probably just reinstall windows.

 

[greensmurfet]

No, my antivirus doesn't do cloud backups.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yes somehow a reinstall may cut your losses and resolve the problem, and I would personally steer clear of those add on programs that claim to make the machine better in soem way or other.

Main thing is that you can get all your data backed up first and personally I keep all of the programs I use as downloads or download them to a stick which makes it easy to reinstall them instead of hunting down them on the net.