Installing a device driver

[Eireann]

I got a good deal (I hope!) on a printer/scanner/copier that even scans film and slides.

This piece of equipment is two years old, so it's not compatible with Windows 7.

I downloaded the relevant software. I saved the file on my hard drive.

When it had downloaded, I right-clicked on the file and extracted the contents.

Now, I have a whole string of documents, some with "Windows Installer" following the name.

I have been clicking on one after another, but no installation wizard has come up.

What am I doing wrong?

[Eireann]

Okay, I figured out what to do, but now I have ANOTHER issue.

A very nice guy who worked in IT at Loser Company had me bring in the computer some time ago so he could work with it. In the process, he created a D drive. This drive has most of the memory. The C drive has about 4 GB.

When I download anything, it goes to the C drive, unless I'm paying attention and direct it to the D drive.

Well. I'm trying to install this device, and it's telling me that the software has to be installed in the C drive, where other software of the same manufacturer is installed. Thing is, the C drive is full, so I have to delete certain files.

I've moved many a folder over to the D drive, but when I try to delete it from the C drive, I get a message saying that one or more files from that folder is in use. I got this message even when I closed down every damned window on the freaking computer.

Now what?

[Jack]

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Install that, right-click file or folder you can't delete, and you can either unlock it or force delete.

[Eireann]

Software is installed, device is plugged in....

But it won't scan. Do I need to replace the ink cartridge before it'll do any damn thing?

[technical.angel]

Quite possibly.......

Some models are like that.

[barcode]

Could you please post your computer and PSC model numbers, so we can look them up? Otherwise, the advice I give may be okay for a TRS-80 Model I with a Diablo 630, but not for what you've got.

In the process, he created a D drive. This drive has most of the memory. The C drive has about 4 GB.

Well, it's not a TRS-80...
Did this guy re-purpose your diagnostic/recovery partition? Most manufacturers now ship computers without the Windows CD - they set up a partition on the HD (since they're so big nowadays), and set the partition as a special type (for BIOS-mode recovery), or set it as inactive (the BIOS will then set it as active and boot to it using the F12 boot menu). The size of most partitions happens to be about 4GB for XP, 8GB for Vista, and 10-16GB for Win7, depending on extra software sold with the computer.

It would be a roundabout way, but my suggestion is to back everything up (just in case), and use a partition editor (Partition Magic or the newer GPartEd CD) to shrink your D partition while expanding the C. Or copy the C to the D, get rid of the current C, then resize the D as the full drive, then relabel it as the C. Or you could get a bigger HD and use the editor supplied (SeaTools, DLG, etc) to clone the old partitions to the new (bigger) ones. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions...

Do I need to replace the ink cartridge before it'll do any damn thing?

Depends on the model. Most HPs want to run a calibration test of both the printer and scanner (it'll print the test page, ask you to place it on the scanner, and kill two birds with one stone as it checks which setting to use to calibrate the print heads while checking the scanner functions. Cool!). So, they need to have at least the black cart inserted.
A Brother MFC model I worked on wanted to have ALL ink tanks full before doing anything else. Canons are pretty cool about that sort of thing, but I haven't worked on many of the newer ones, so YMMV.

barcode

[Eireann]

Well, let's see...

The computer is an HP, Compaq dx7300. The C drive contains 30GB of memory. The D drive contains the rest - and the hard drive is 1,000GB

The printer/scanner/copier is also HP, Photosmart 3210 All-in-One.

My guess is, I'll have to replace all the ink, because the light shaped like an exclamation point keeps blinking, and the readout keeps talking about the cartridges. Not that my Czech is all that great.

[barcode]

Okay, I guess 1TB is is "enough" for Win7...

My guess? The guy cloned your old hard drive using the default settings from the SeaTools/DLG disk. Essentially, it copies your old HD partitions EXACTLY to the new drive, and leaves the rest as one big partition. So...

Old C drive is 30GB, new drive is 1TB, the program will create the first partition as the 30GB, and since there are no more partitions, it'll default to having the second partition "fill to end", or 970GB. After the cloning, you remove the old drive, and the new one boots as if nothing has changed, except you now have two partitions, the original 30GB, and the new 970GB (as C and D, respectively).

What SHOULD have been done is bypass the defaults, and set it up as either two equal partitions (two 500GBs), or play with the sizes for your use (if you install few programs, but save lots of data, then having a bigger D would be useful, say C=250/D=750. If you back things up to external storage, then why bother? Make the whole @#$%ing thing as C.

And for all we know, you might actually have two drives in there - maybe he added the new one as D, keeping the C drive intact. In that case, you'd still want to backup everything, and run the tools to clone the old to the new, like he should have done in the first place. Hmmm. With Win7, I'd keep C at least 100-200GB or so.

That guy done goofed...

barcode

[Eireann]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that the old hard drive bit the dust in a most dramatic manner, so the IT guy was working with a "clean" drive, so to speak. He installed my programs for me and did a lot of good stuff with it. I only wish the C drive were bigger.

[Eric the Grey]

One thing I can suggest to make room on your C drive without repartitioning would be to move your "My Documents" folder to your D drive. Of course, the amount of space you'll reclaim is dependent on how much you have in there...

Right-click on your "My Documents" icon on your desktop. Click on Properties.

In the resulting dialog box, is a "Move" button. Click that and navigate to your D drive, create a new folder to place your documents into and let it go. In theory (I've done this once, and I *THINK* I remember it this way) it will move all your documents to the new location.



Eric the Grey

[Der Cute]

With Windows 7 you can enlarge or shrink a partition.

What I'm understanding is that the IT guy installed ONE physical hard drive. 1 TB.
He then partitioned it into c: 4gb and d: rest of it.

Now, with your older software, it's not letting you install .exe (programs) into the D: section.

What you can do, as Barcode above talked about - is change the size of the partitions.
Think of a pie. Right now the pie is sliced tiny for C, and huge for D. You can adjust the slicing to make a bigger C and a smaller D.

Suggestion:

Start menu
Right click on Computer
Select Manage
Open the management console
click on Disk Management
Wait til the bar graph looking thing loads.

Should see on middle right area saying "DISK 0" and the big bar shaded
and then DISK 1 shaded.
C: is 0 D: is 1.

Right click on the D drive bar, and the menu should say shrink volume.
Select that.

You then get a popup. You're going to do some math here or post pics for us to walk you thru.
The popup has you selecting how much to shrink.
The shrink field should change to 80000.

Then the OS will shrink the D: drive and there will be unallocated space on the hard drive.

You can then "re-allocate" that space back to the C: drive.

Right click the C: drive bar, and select the line of Extend Drive.

The extend drive wizard pops up and has a chunk selected already. Just highlight that and hit next, and the OS will add the space to the C: drive.

Reboot

Run Defrag

Have fun.

Cutenoob

[lordlundar]

Hmm, humor me on this (pertains to the PSC unit:

1. Click your start menu and select Devices and Printers on the right hand side of the start menu. If it's not there, open the control panel and select the same title link in the Hardware and sound category.

2. Double click the printer in question. It should open a detailed information window about the printer.

3. On the bottom part, there should be an option labelled "scan a document or printer" Double click that.

4. Place an item you want to scan on the bed, follow the directions in the window that loads up, and select scan.

If number 3 does not have a scan option, then the drivers aren't recognizing the scanner and are possibly incorrect. If 4 fails, it could be the same issue. If all steps succeed but you cannot scan from the printer option, then it could be a firmware issue and drivers alone aren't going to cut it.

[Eireann]

Okay, I did - and it just shows printing options, not scanning or copying. The device is not turned on right now, because it keeps bitching about the lack of ink, and I'm tired of looking at that flashing exclamation point in my peripheral vision.

One odd thing is, when I bring up a new window, it takes some time to come up, and some time to shrink to the bottom of the screen. What could be causing it?

[lordlundar]

Okay, HP has a bad rep with not keeping up to date, but unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about it.

Here's the ink to the software package for Win7 32 and this one is for the Win7 64.

Uninstall the drivers you have (win7 will install some generic ones, don't worry about it) and run the appropriate program you downloaded. It should (hope against hope, wish against wish kind of thing here) allow you to send a scan command from the computer. If the issue is scan commands sent from the printer not being recognized, that's most likely the firmware on the printer being out of date and there's no remedy for that apart from sending it to HP and hope they have updated firmware.

As for the slow response with windows, it could be twofold. One, the USB connection is running in 1.1 mode as opposed to 2.0. Those windows don't display until they have all the data so a delay in getting data could be the issue.
The other possibility is that something is using up a lot of resources, which is causing the delay. couldn't tell which is accurate without looking at it myself.

[Eireann]

That's what I downloaded, and installed. However, the scan function still isn't happening. I've sent an email to the HP support center, and I'm waiting to hear back from them. I specifically mentioned the problem with the scanning, and asked if I would have to replace the ink first.

I found a pretty good deal on all of the HP inks, with 150 sheets of photo paper, at a local store, but I'd rather not have to shell out that money if I don't have to do it.