FYI: Acronis and missing USB card reader drives bug

[NightOwl]

I just thought I would share some information on a problem I recently solved with my new 3XS system, as this could very easily catch others out. Scan staff may like to take note of this in case you get any support calls on this one.

I ordered my PC with no OS and duly installed Vista on it - in Windows Explorer I saw the usual list of hard drives/patitions, four removable drives (for the Akasa card reader) and the DVD drive. After a few days I noticed my card reader drives had vanished from Explorer. Device Manager said the drivers were installed, up to date and functioning but there were four additional Generic Volume entries further down the list with ! warnings about "This device cannot start (code 10)". I tried various remedies to get the drives to show in Explorer but no luck. Hooking up the card reader slots from my monitor to the PC gave the same result: no removable drives visible in Explorer.

The problem was resolved when I discovered that Acronis True Image 2009 was the culprit. It seems the version of the program (Build 9611) shipped to me as part of my system order has a bug in it that causes this removable drive problem. The solution is to register the software online with Acronis then download the latest version (currently Build 9709).

You can check what version of the program you have installed by running it, then pressing ALT to reveal a menu at the top of the main page. From here you can look at Help > About for the installed Build No.

[Ben @ Scan]

Thanks for the heads up regarding the Acronis Issue, we will inform any other customers that may have the same issue