New Printer, New Laptop, printer won't print

One question before I do this: Will this erase the things I have on the computer now?  (Doc's, video's, music, etc)

I have had the laptop for 2 weeks.  I bought it from Walmart.  When I enter the service tag, the info says it was shipped in Sept of this year, and that the warranty is out.  Even though I just bought it, I guess that doesn't matter because it was shipped a few months earlier.  

I haven't done anything that I know of to mess the computer up.

As soon as I got it, I tried to install my previous HP printer on the computer.  I had to download the new software for Vista for it.  After I did that, that printer wouldn't work, so thus began my hours and hours of tech support over the phone, with no luck.  So, I went and bought this new printer, and, it wouldn't print either.  

I have the discs.  Just need to know if I need to save the stuff on the computer before I do this restore.

reederhouse,

Let me say this. I have done this with my Dell laptop a few times and never lost a file or folder, just Windows Updates.

Also let me say, if your computer fails you today, would you be able to retreive your files and folders. It should is a good practice to make backup copies of files and folders that you cannot afford to lose. If my computer hard drive failed and yes the do but mostly over time, I have my files and folders burned to disks, so I could install a new hard drive, re-install the operating system and then add my files and folders with no problems.

Rick

I tried to repair from the cd, it said no problems were detected to repair.   Then I did an upgrade from the cd, it took about 3 hours, and i dont think anything changed.  I tried to uninstall the epson printer and it tells me "cannot uninstall driver"  So that means it wont let me reinstall it.  Any ideas?

This fixed my problem!!! Thank you! I couldn't have done it without you.

I am having the exact same problem.  I bought my Dell 1536 over the Christmas holidays and just began using it the first week of January 2009.  We installed HP Deskjet 5500 drivers onto the computer and it wouldn't print.  Since we had several other computers in the house and school wasn't back in yet (which is the key reason we need to print from the laptop), we didn't worry too much about it, though.

Two weeks ago, I tried again to load the drivers and it still wouldn't work.  Then tried it with an Epson printer we have.  Contacted Dell Support, and they wouldn't even talk to me about it since the printers weren't Dell.  Fortunately, I have access to a Dell 926 (still wouldn't work), so now Dell support would talk to me.   

After 7 1/2 hours on the line with Dell customer support (who were extremely helpful and knowledgeable, even though my issue was not resolved), going from laptop support to printer support, etc., I was told to contact the people at Dell who I could pay $253 to have fix my problem.  To say the least, I was a big upset.  When I complained to the software support tech guy that it seemed that wasn't fair, he said that's what I get for not purchasing a software support agreement.

I have reimaged my computer now three times to the factory setting and Dell customer support has tried everything in their bag of tricks to get the laptop to print.  (delete driver, reinstall, turn on/off firewalls, absolutely everything I have seen on the net as possible solutions.)

I brought the laptop back to Staples to see if I could return it, but they have a 2 week return policy, so I was told to contact Staples support since I'd purchased a $150 support contract with them.  I was assured by the manager at Staples that they could help me.  Well, after two hours on the phone with their guy, I found out that the Dell people in Indian are much better trained at fixing problems.  I appreciate that they are trying to keep jobs in America, though.

So now I have spent at least 10 hours (not including the time it's taken me to type this and all the hours of surfing the net to find solutions) to fix a problem that should not have existed in the first place.  Unless I come up with a solution soon, I will then get to spend countless more hours writing letters to Dell and Staples and whomever else I can think of to complain and try and find a solution.

If ANYONE has any idea on how to resolve this, please post here.  I will continue to check back and try whatever is new.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=5675F700F53C49A9E040AE0AB7E1646A&doclang=en&cs

This is the link that solved my problem.