How to Connect External Laptop Drives to a Parallel Port

Laptops have a limited number of ports and drives. Since the debut of USB ports, most computers have dropped parallel ports in favor of the small, more popular USB. However, there are still hardware devices that solely function off a parallel port connection. If you find yourself in contact with such a device but only have your parallel port free laptop, there is still a way to connect the two devices.

Things You'll Need

• Laptop
• USB to parallel port adapter
• Adapter driver installation CD

Instructions

1. Connect the USB side of the adapter into one of the available USB ports on your laptop computer. More than likely the computer will not state it has detected a new piece of hardware.

2. Insert the adapter's driver installation CD into the CD drive of the laptop. Momentarily, the installation wizard will load.

3. Follow the prompts consisting of the installation location and file type to complete the driver installation. Keep all of the prompts as the default settings. If you change these settings, your laptop computer can have difficulties finding the drives when need to.

4. Connect the parallel port end of the adapter to any device that runs off of a parallel port. As long as you install the drivers for the connected hardware, you can run the device just as if you had a parallel port installed on your laptop.

References

• Beyond Logic: Interfacing Standard Parallel Port