My computer doesn't recognize my USB cord

Question

First of all, my printer prints fine if I'm connected with my USB cord in the printer port.  However, when I connect any other device (camera or hooking up to do wireless printing) it keeps telling me to plug it in and it IS!!  Today trying to go from USB connected to wireless printer, during the set up it says "plug in USB port to computer" (or something like that).  Well, the USB was already plugged in.  It continued with that message and wouldn't go any further in the set up process.  All this time, I thought something was wrong with my camera but now I see - it's something else.  So, I tried it with printer on and printer off - no luck.  A bad port maybe?  So, I tried other ports but continued to be told I needed to plug USB cord in.  It's so frustrating-  I have a 7520 HP Printer (with all the bells and whistles).  A Toshiba laptop, and a new General Electric camera (the camera does not come with a CD to load software so it's not that).   I tried setting up wireless using the CD AND by going online to HP site but both tell me to hook up usb cord and won't go any further because it's not recognizing that it IS plugged in!!!!     Any advice....I really need to switch over to wireless because my living room is now arranged differently and the printer is on one side of the LRoom and the computer (laptop) is in the middle of the LRoom.  Oh, you need to know, I took my camera to a computer shop, WITH MY USB CORD, they plugged it in and there were all my photo files -- so it worked with their computer -- same camera same cord I am using now but it won't recognize the device on my computer.   Really puzzled - can you help me?   Much thanks!
ellis

Answer 1

You said:
1) First of all, my printer prints fine if I'm connected with my USB cord in the printer port.
2)  I tried setting up wireless using the CD AND by going online to HP site but both tell me to hook up usb cord and won't go any further because it's not recognizing that it IS plugged in.
First of all, dedicate just one REAR USB port to the printer. Stop swapping cables or ports. The wireless setup is different, and is selected during the install process ( you have to momentarily use the USB cable).
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