Attack of the cloned ports

cloned ports listed on the menu popup of the 'Select a Printer Port' section of the 'Add Printer Wizard' window

Two days ago, Mr. Steven has managed to fix my printer. He gave it to me and I was happy. I connect the printer to the parallel port and the power source. The printer runs, cleaning its cartridge head. I boot up my computer and Windows couldn't auto-detect the printer. Okay, I try to use the Add Printer Wizard and it reveals yet again the same shocking sight. The wizard lists all ports and cloned ports including LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4 and even FILE (Print to File) ports.

I see, maybe my computer system is corrupted. Mr. Steven advised me to clean up my hard disk, reformat it completely. Somehow I don't think that this is a software-related problem. I still insist that it's a hardware problem even though he has verified that my printer is okay now. My copy of Windows XP and Windows 98 couldn't auto-detect it. Even Redhat Linux couldn't detect it too.

Well, this is one weird problem indeed. To solve this, I might just reformat my hard disk and start all over again. But wait, I have to back up my files first and unfortunately, I don't have CD or DVD burners, portable hard disk drives, Zip drives, Flash drives, back-up drives, whatever. Sigh, maybe I should just leave this and don't care of anything? Maybe not.

What a dilemma.

Posted over 5 years ago, on Tuesday, 19 April 2005

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