DesignJet 500 Printer Error

I've been enjoying my new DJ500 until just recently. I pulled up an old job
(created before my DJ500 when I had a DJ600), updated the plotter
configuration for the drawing and tried to plot. Of course, one of my
problems was that the old job that I had trouble plotting is set up for
24"x36" sheets in landscape mode while my previous job (that plotted fine)
was set up for 30"x42" in portrait mode using my 30" roll. I was/am to lazy
to change rolls just for a check print, so I set the drawing up for 30"x42"
knowing that there would be white space around the drawing. I got an error
that I've never seen before and it's confounding me. I've posted the error
messages to my website. It's located at:
http://www.allendesigns.com/PlotterWoes.htm

Any help would be most appreciated.

Regards,

Bill

 

In case anyone might be interested (not likely since I did not get a
response), I found out the source of the problem and some workarounds.

Apparently (according to HP tech support), the problem is with the latest HP
driver, Windows XP Pro and AutoCAD versions 2005 and newer. There seems to
be a problem with long file names. Of course, I would contend that I didn't
make the file name long. After all, I don't need "\Documents and
Settings\Bill Allen\My Documents\" in the string when I'm the only user. But
I digress. There are two workarounds:

1. Move the directory to the root directory. This works, but not a
satisfactory solution (to me).
2. Turn on Background Printing. The HP tech said that this does not work all
the time, but it has worked every time I have tried it.

Apparently someone (HP? Autodesk? Microsoft?) is working on a revised
driver/patch.

Regards,

Bill Allen