HP Deskjet 5550 does not print

[mersault]

I have HP Deskjet 5550 printer (and winXP op. sistem)...it printed just fine for years...a week ago I mistakenly uninstalled the driver from "add/remove programs" menu...

Then I downloaded the driver from interenet and after installing it, the printer did not work...

If I order a document to be printed, it shows in the "printer dialog box" and after few seconds it disappears as if it was printed...but printer doesn't print the document...

I wnet to HP interenet site and there they have a program that checks, if you have proper driver installed - it checked my system and said I have the right driver installed...

I checked cables many times and they seem ok...

Any suggestions?

Thank you

 

[SYL\X/3K]

Go to :
start > Printers and faxes
do you see your printer highlighted or faded out? or nothing?

 

[mersault]

I can see highlighted printer icon as usualy...when i move mouse cursor over the icon it says "Status: ready, documents: 0".

 

[mersault]

p.s.: maybe this has nothing to do with my problem, but some days ago I deleted some files from windows folder...I was following the instructions on this page (only first few numbers):
[GUIDE]: Making your windows folder smaller! - Neowin Forums

Quote of the "interesting" instructions:
5. c:\windows\driver cache\i386\

NOTE: DON'T DELETE THIS FOLDER, JUST ALL THE FILES INSIDE! This is one you may not want to delete, this takes up a bit of space (about 80mb) but windows uses if you ever add or remove windows components and things like printer drivers. If you're your hardware is already working fine, you don't need this folder on your hard drive. For example, if you delete this folder, and try to install IIS, windows will ask for the CD or Network share with the files on it, if you don't need to add or remove windows components often, deleting this will free up some space for you.

 

[SYL\X/3K]

this guy is an idiot, why would you delete system files that run drivers and other things like sp2, etc just to make space on the hard drive (100MB)
i dont know if check disk will help but you can go to My Computer > "right" click local disk > Properties > Tools > check now> highlight all boxes and click ok > reboot computer and let it finish scanning
If that doesnt work you going to have to throw in the XP CD and do a repair for windows OR you can go to restore point and rollback to previous settings