J-M-L:
Probably the code ran once without you noticing (ie the serial console was not opened when you first uploaded)Well just put unsigned long in the structure...
struct __attribute__ ((packed)) _paramS {
unsigned long minimumT;
unsigned long maximumT;
} myParamters;
of course you need to adjust the values as you can't store -22 or -55 in an unsigned... change the keyword to something else so that default values are written again
your right it is working. i'm starting to figure it out i'm going to spend some time trial and error. thanks again