XP doesn't recognize printer?

Was working on a friend's PC over the weekend, and ran across a weird printing problem. She complained that she was unable to print. It's an HP Deskjet 1120C.

I noted that there was no definition for the printer in Printers and Faxes. So I powered the thing up and plugged in the USB cable. No joy. Searched for a new P&P printer. No joy. Thought the USB might be dead, so plugged in my USB thumbdrive. Worked fine. Hmmm. Must be the printer or the cable? Plugged the cable into my laptop, and the printer worked, no problem. So, not the printer or the cable.

Went back to Printers and Faxes in XP, and noted that while there was no definition for the HP there, there were six(!) instances of a Lexmark printer that the user no longer had. Tried deleting all of those instances, and XP let me delete two. The others stubbornly remain. Attempting to remove them result in no error message, just no effect.

My guess is that the printing subsystem is screwed up. Anyone have any ideas (short of an XP reinstall) to kick this XP installation to maybe get the printing subsystem to work properly? Anyone seen something like this?

Chris.