Printer disappears on HP Officejet 6500A, wired, with XP OS, on HP Pavillion dv1000 Laptop

[HPLoyal]

I've had my HP Officejet 6500A  fulti-function for 9 months, worked great. 2 weeks ago printer disappeared one day, reappeared the next, and since has disappeared.

Control Panel - Printers - showing nothing but an ADD PRINTER button. When I click this sole button, I get the ERROR MESSAGE:  "Operation could not be completed. The printer spooler service is not running."

I have also tried downloading printer devices from HP website to no avail.

I can't find my software installation disk, otherwise I would have started with that.

It's crucial that my printer work, especially now during peak time.

My scanner initially rejects scanning, but it eventually shows up on my pc screen.

My laptop and multi-function are USB connected.

I can run copies off of my mult-function as well.

I can't fax, which the printer always kept defaulting to fax rather than my selection of printer default function.

Sadly, this happened during one of the most crucial periods of my senior citizen life regarding some legal matters with life-long consequences.

I'm astute in general computer operation, know many softwares, etc.

I routinely do virus, spyware, malware scans, besides disk clean up and disk defragmentation. So my laptop is pretty clean.

WHAT CAUSED THIS?

HOW CAN I FIX IT?

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT THIS?

I have spent days researching, trying to download, etc,

ALSO, WITH MY OWNER PROOF, IS THERE A LOCATION I CAN DOWNLOAD THE SOFTWARE AGAIN?

Thank you.

[Gordon_H]

Hello HPLoyal and Welcome to the HP Consumer Printer Forums,

Sorry you are having such trouble with your HP Officejet 6500A.

First, I would recommend updating the devices firmware (if you have not already done so in the past). A link to information about the firmware update can be found HERE.

Second, I would try reloading the software. You can find it HERE.

I am unsure what caused this, and what you could have done to prevent it, but hopefully the information provided above can help you resolve the issue.

[gdoyle]

This same problem is occurring with my HP 6500A printer. It disappears and gives me the message that the Print Spooler Service is not running. I have tried to uninstall and reinstall the printer software but cannot fix this problem myself. Help!!!!

[Gordon_H]

Hello gdoyle,

Try the HP Print and Scan Doctor found HERE and let me know if it resolves the issue or not.

[gdoyle]

Print Doc did not fix. Reinstalled Basic Software AGAIN and am still getting error messages. Now error message says Before you can perform printer-related tasks such as page set up or printing a document, you need to install a printer. Do you want to install a printer now? Argh.