It seems that I'm going to have to shell out on the soft
If you mean that driver discovery stuff, then I wouldn't bother. If you mean PM, then I've pretty much transferred my allegiance to Acronis. But for most stuff, UBCD gets the job done just as well. Your HPLJ4 driver is in your XP Pro CD, unless you've got some odd bastardized product. Since the driver was part of the XP distribution and was never updated after that by HP, the driver is not on the HP web site. However, it is available for W2K. You can check
HP LaserJet 4p/mp Printer series- Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center if you wish.