Problem with HP DesignJet 800PS 42

TIA for any ideas on this problem. I search the Visio newsgroup
before posting, but didn't see anything that seemed to fit.

I'm experiencing a problem printing a large Visio drawing to our
networked HP DesignJet 800 plotter with a 42 in. paper roll. The
plotter is supposed to be running the latest software.

I'm using Visio 2003. The Visio page size is: Custom size 165 in. x
41 in.
I want to print the Visio drawing on a single plotter sheet that is 42
in. wide and 167 in. long. Here is the problem. The plotter barfs
when the length is set to anything greater than 128 in. If I set the
paper size to 42 in. x 128 in. and force the drawing to fit 1 page x 1
page, it works, but it scales the drawing to fit and leaves a lot of
whitespace at the bottom. I want to maximize the use of the paper, so
this solution is not a good one for me.

If I set the printer paper size to 167 in. (actually anything greater
than 128 in.), and scale to 100% (or 1 x 1), the plotter spits out 167
in. of blank paper with the Visio drawing the size of a postage stamp
in one corner of all that blank paper! The only other info I have is
that when the paper size is set to 128 in., the Printer Properties for
the plotter reports that the file size is ~ 12Mb. If I change the
printer paper size to anything greater than 128 in., the Printer
Properties reports the file size is ~ 800Kb, obviously wrong. The
Visio file itself is ~ 2Mb in size.

If I set the paper size to 128 in. and scale to 100%, I would expect
it to print two sheets that are 128 in. and split the drawing accross
the two pages. That what Print Preview in Visio shows. But when I do
that, the plotter will print the first page, but gets hung up somehow
and never actually prints the second page.

My solution so far has been to cut the drawing into two pieces and
print each separately, staying within the 128 in. paper size limit.
That works, but is not workable long-term solution for me. The
overall drawing is likely to change size, and having to cut it is a
time-consuming major hassle.

Does anyone have any insight into this problem? At first, I thought it
was a plotter driver problem, but now I'm thinking it might be a Visio
problem. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.