Ssc service utility does not work

It shows printer unknown state at the bottom the utility or it gives a printer off or unknown problem when you try and check the protection counter.

I had a friend that had both an r220 and an r340 Epson on one computer and was getting the above when she tried to use the ssc service utility to reset the protection counter.
After hours of trying everything I could think of and reading everything online at goggle about this problem I was ready to give up. I was lucky in that she had two hardrives with xp on both so I was able to prove that it was not a cable, printer, or other hardware problem. Since old worked on her old hardrive with the same printers connected I knew it had to be something in the registry or the software on the new drive. As I was about to give up I thought off one last thing, since the program did not seem to be able to talk to the printers and since they were both USB connected I did this.


Went to control panel then system then hardware then device manager then universal serial ports the USB printer ports. I right clicked on both of them and uninstalled both. Then I restarted the computer and it reinstalled the printers and there USB ports.
After doing this the SSC service utility could see both printers and I was able to reset the protection counter.

While looking on goggle I saw a lot of post by people with this problem but no fix well here is my fix.