Trouble installing HP500 drivers on XPPro box...

[Art]

'Morning all,
We recently purchased a HP500 Plotter for our cabinetry
shop and when I tried to install the drivers for it (from
the included disc), I was informed that the box (XP Pro)
wouldn't take them.
We tried the same disk on another XP Pro box and they
installed fine (so the disc is working properly).
I realized that the first XP Box hadn't had Service Pack
1 installed, so I went ahead and did that, seeing that
there were a fair number of things that it needed, some of
which deal with third party driver issues, so I assumed
that this would fix the problem. It Didn't. After the
entire SP1 download, I'm still unable to get the drivers
for the 500 onto the box (which is going to run the
plotter).
Other info: The XP Pro box is fully recognizing the
network, so that's not the issue (not that it should be
anyhow, being a stand-alone driver install). I installed
the drivers using an ADMIN account, so THAT'S not it. The
plotter will NOT be networked so I can't just put the
drivers on the Server, say, and use it that way... the
plotter needs to be uniquely tied to the particular XP Pro
box through a parallel connection.
Another suggestion was to install XP again but I'm
loathe to do that unless there's no other alternative (and
then I'd just need to download SP1 again, anyway).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
~Art...

 

[Dave - Freedonia]

What you could try is to remove any printer from the computer. Turn the
computer off and remove the plotter cable. Turn the computer on and see
if any printers remain, if so, remove them. You may also have to go
into the Server Properties from the File menu on the Printer and Faxes
window. Once there, go to the drivers tab and remove any plotter
drivers.

Turn the computer off and reconnect the plotter. Turn the printer on and
see if XP auto detects the printer. Not not try the Add New Hardware
Wizard from the control panel.