printer problem

Running Win 7 on my laptop . My Brother HL ran out of toner and I won't receive the toner for a couple days so I brought out my ancient Lexmark E310 which I've used as a backup for quite a while. Its an old parallel printer and works like a charm. When I connected everything and tried to print a document the darn thing wouldn't print. I've tried everything for 3-4 hours now and nothing works. I've played with it trying to install a new driver for it from Lexmark, a compatible driver from HP, downloading the driver(s) from CNET and Tucows but all they did was add programs that I didn't want or ask you to pay a fee to get the driver(s). I've deleted the printer and added it again with no luck. I tried the Windows update thing to no avail as well. I know I need a virtual printer port and tried configuring all the available USB ports with no success as well. As usual when I'm at wits end I always end up here hoping to find my guardian angels to bail me out of my predicament. The damn thing prints the test page at times and other times it doesn't. That happens when I play with the printer port configurator. Don't get it. Prints the page when I do something right, but won't print a saved document when I try printing immediately after printing the test page. Can anyone help me with this mess??