So - if you have problems with Hiren's Mini Windows XP not loading Hiren's apps, try removing all of your other USB storage devices first. On that boot, Mini XP correctly loaded the Hirens HBCD menu application as well as a bunch of other stuff related to Hiren's.
Removing the SD card (as well as the uber-small Sandisk Cruzer Fit I had added for extra storage) fixed the issue. XP was not capable of reading the SD card owing to the large capacity, and essentially got stuck, unable to locate or load any of the Hiren's apps. It seems Mini XP got confused after boot and replaced the USB stick drive with the SD card. The conflict in my case was an SD card that I had added to the system. It looked like the USB stick was not there, even though the machine had booted from it just fine. Scrounging around the File Manager turned up nada. Mini Windows XP ran fine, but all the programs were missing!
In fact, I did not see any programs at all.
Oddly enough, when I booted the Z from the USB stick, I did not see Image for Windows. IFW seems to be one of the only programs out there that can actually do a bare metal restore.) (I recommend Image For Windows, available on Hiren's, but you should buy a licence. I have done this before, and it worked well. I wanted to back up my Z3 using Hiren's Boot CD.
