hi all, thanks for pitching in.
yesterday i got it sorted out somehow. (i'm running on windows xp pro sp2, btw.) i had no additional usb or firewire devices on. i located the r-09 in the devices window in the administrative area. right clicked on it and went thru the motions of having windows reinstall the driver even though i had no clue about if there was one/or where it was. when it was done, the r-09 device name was gone. in its place was a generic drive name, and it worked.
i was going to give an external card reader a try but didn't have to. also, afterwards, the latest firmware version installed like buttah'.
thanks again.
cheers,
h