[rhconley]

Until yesterday, when I placed my Hewlett Packard Photosmart 850 digital camera into it's USB dock connected to my WinXP Home machine, it would be detected and picture download would start automatically. However, I had to re-install the Hewlett-Packard photo software package and now when I place my camera in the dock, I'm presented with an error message that reads "Cannot install this hardware. An error occurred during installation of the device. The required section was not found in the INF." This is very disturbing because the camera was working normally 2 days ago. I checked the HP web site for guidance...nothing. I made no changes to my computer or the camera...just re-installed the HP photo software package. Can anyone provide guidance? I have no problem modifying system files or the registry. I've been researching this problem on the net and have found it to not be uncommon, with the typical answer being "...reinstall the software". That hasn't worked for me, however. I've uninstalled every USB device in Device Manager and re-booted. All the devices are re-installed, but I cannot get the camera to install. The problem exists on both USB ports. It seems to very camera-specific.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[jbcalg]

would doing a system restore work instead of fiddlin with the software?

of course you'd lose any system changes made in between

[700mb80min]

Maybe some pieces of the original install were left " hanging around " . Try completely removing all traces of both installs with the reg cleaner from below and try a clean re-install.

http://www.webattack.com/get/regseeker.html

[rhconley]

I have done several re-installs after cleaning the registry manually and after using several registry cleaner programs. And like I said in my original message, I even uninstalled and reinstalled all of the USB ports, to no avail. Something's preventing plug-and-play from recognizing my camera. Unfortunately, I don't have any other USB devices to plug in to see if they get recognized OK. This is very frustrating.

[MustBNuts]

Okay, don't want to insult anyones intelligence here, but quick question: when you reinstalled, did you follow the HP installation process exactly? In other words, sometimes they require that you plug in the device BEFORE any software or drivers are installed, then install the rest. (My printer, an HP, works this way).

You may also want to check the HP site for "uninstall" software, or search the site on uninstalling rather than the software not installing. I recently discovered, while helping a friend with a botched install, that in order to get rid of all traces of the original software, I needed a specific exe from....yes, you guessed it, HP.

Good luck,

MBN

[DaveBurnett]

I have just spent all day trying to find what is causing the same problem with my scanner. It was working OK this morning. I have tried everything I can think of, but I camnot get it to work

[The ScanMan]

This happened to me under Windows 2000 when I deleted entry for "Imaging Devices" in the registry while trying to clean up after a messy installation. The message "The required section was not found in the INF" seems to refer to the registry and not the INF file which makes more sense.

I am not an expert, but the following worked for me. You may need to modify some of it:

1) Take backup of registry (export relevant keys)
2) Detach camera (and scanners)
3) Remove relevant software
4) Restore default registry information for "Imaging Devices" in sections ControlSet01, ControlSet02, CurrentControlSet by pasting follwing into "fix.reg" and using it to update registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{6BDD1FC6-810F-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}]
"Class"="Image"
@="Imaging devices"
"Installer32"="sti_ci.dll,ClassInstall"
"TroubleShooter-0"="tshoot.chm,hdw_scanner.htm"
"Icon"="0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\Class\{6BDD1FC6-810F-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}]
"Class"="Image"
@="Imaging devices"
"Installer32"="sti_ci.dll,ClassInstall"
"TroubleShooter-0"="tshoot.chm,hdw_scanner.htm"
"Icon"="0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{6BDD1FC6-810F-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}]
"Class"="Image"
@="Imaging devices"
"Installer32"="sti_ci.dll,ClassInstall"
"TroubleShooter-0"="tshoot.chm,hdw_scanner.htm"
"Icon"="0"

5) Remove subheadings 0000, 0001, ... if they exist under this key for all above "ControlSets" keys. If the system will not let you do this reboot and see how it looks...

6) Reboot

7) Install software for camera and everything should be ok

8) You may need to start StillImage Service if you get a "page fault" on start of application

Good Luck!

[DaveBurnett]

After re-installing my machine twice, on the third time, I decided to track down what was causing it once and for all. I eventually found it was a faulty piece of software that I have used for years on many machines that just happens to change a wrong key in the registery on this particular one.
It turns out that all I needed to do was reactivate the microsoft registry server.