Past perfect

Yes, you should say 'before I managed...'. There is no call to use past perfect there, since the word 'before' clearly orders the past events.

Yes. 'Before' makes the sequence of events clear.

licinioInstead of
I turned on the computer, but before I had managed to log on there was a power cut
can I say:
... before I managed to log on...?

Either way is fine. before ... had PP is used to indicate an action that failed to materialize or was interrupted. On the other hand, the simple past works too because of the order of events (or

Thanks, I like your explanation because it point outs the additional shade of meaning that the past perfect gives to the sentence, i.e. unaccomplished action. Otherwise I agree that the sequence of events was clear enough and there would have been no call to use this tense (that was my reason for asking).

Andrea