Do you know anything about printers in MacOS 10.8?

Archives Forums/MacOS X Discussion/Do you know anything about printers in MacOS 10.8?

Tricky(Posted 2013) [#1]
I have a new Mac Mini with Mountain Lion installed.
I'm not planning to upgrade to Mavericks yet....

I have a HP Laserjet printer.

So I want to print, so I plug in the printer into my Mac and OS X responds with

"You inserted a disk unreadable by this system".

That is the first of the oddities I encountered. Mac appears unable to tell a disk drive from a printer apart. I never heard something silly like THAT before.

Of course, I am fully aware I had no drivers, so I googled them. Well I end up on the HP site and they say that I can get them by using Software Update. Well we all know that Apple dropped that feature and does all software updates through the AppStore now, so I took a look there, but as expected the AppStore showed nothing.

After googling lots of times I finnally found HP Printer drivers on the website of Apple itself. I checked and they were for Snow Leopard, Lion AND Mountain Lion, so I downloaded that. It was a DMG file containing an installer, so I ran the installer.

I wanted to make a test print and I tried to add my printer, but the list of printers that popped up was.... TADAAAAA



I am completely out of clues now.... You got any ideas?


Brucey(Posted 2013) [#2]
You could try this : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US

If that doesn't work, try repairing permissions of your startup disk with Disk Utility.

And if in doubt, have you tried turning it off and on again? The printer, that is, while it's connected to the Mac.


GfK(Posted 2013) [#3]
That is the first of the oddities I encountered. Mac appears unable to tell a disk drive from a printer apart.
It is likely doing that because your printer has an SD card slot on it.


xlsior(Posted 2013) [#4]
Actually, it's most likely because many of the newer printers have SD memory onboard (kind of like a built-in thumbdrive) that contain the drivers -- so when you connect the printer by USB, in addition to the printer itself it also automatically tries to mount that driver 'disc' for you in the process.
If the filesystem in the flash module got corrupted somehow it could throw the error you're seeing.

anyway, bottom line: those built-in 'driver disk' things are entirely seperate from the actual printing capabilities of the printer. As long as you have the appropriate drivers installed, you should still be able to print... (Unless the printer's built-in USB controller itself is shot, in which case it could be a symptom for a bigger hardware failure -- are you able to print to it from a PC?)


Tricky(Posted 2013) [#5]
(Unless the printer's built-in USB controller itself is shot, in which case it could be a symptom for a bigger hardware failure -- are you able to print to it from a PC?)

I really don't know. This Mac is the only system I currently have, so I'll have to try this out on somebody else's PC.

Actually, it's most likely because many of the newer printers have SD memory onboard (kind of like a built-in thumbdrive) that contain the drivers -- so when you connect the printer by USB, in addition to the printer itself it also automatically tries to mount that driver 'disc' for you in the process.
If the filesystem in the flash module got corrupted somehow it could throw the error you're seeing.

I don't know if this printer has that system in place.

And if in doubt, have you tried turning it off and on again? The printer, that is, while it's connected to the Mac.

I can try that one....


Brucey(Posted 2013) [#6]
I can try that one....

Well, if that doesn't work, then try the Disk Utility permissions repair.

Open Disk Utility (it's in Applications/Utilities)

Select your startup disk, and then click on the "Repair Disk Permissions" button.

Then turn the printer off and on again, and see if that sorts it out.


It's unlikely anything to do with SD cards.

What model is your printer?


Tricky(Posted 2013) [#7]
What model is your printer?

HP LaserJet P1102

I'll dig out the repair permissions one out right away


Tricky(Posted 2013) [#8]
BRUCEY.... MY SAVIOR!!!!!!
It works now.... Thanks a lot man!


Brucey(Posted 2013) [#9]
Glad you can print at last :-)


xlsior(Posted 2013) [#10]
FWIW: HP LaserJet P1102W does have flash memory containing the drivers built-in.


Tricky(Posted 2013) [#11]
Well, either way it works...
This time it was only for scancodes for the movie theatre, but (as some of you might know), I am a novel writer and when I register my stuff (to get proof I am the copyright holder) I sometimes have to print over 200 pages in once, so I guess you understand I am really dependent on that printer working well.

When I bought this printer I had a CD-ROM containing drivers for both Mac and Windows, but as the MacMini doesn't have a CD-ROM any more, that was not an option (though I am considering to get an USB CD-ROM driver. I don't use it much, but I still have things on CD-ROM. My wedding pictures to name something silly, but one of my former editors requires me to keep a copy of my books on CD-ROM. Well the ones they published that is).

I don't know if it were the drivers I downloaded that suddenly appeared in my list or if it got it from the printers internal drives, in the end it worked, so all's well that ends well.

For course I already thanked Brucey, but of course thanks to all of you who replied as well for thinking with me. Really I would never have thought of the method Brucey named here, but it worked. :)