2/9/2002 Update: ADS/Pyro issued an RMA for the bridge card, which is the FireWire-IDE interface board that mounts inside the Drive Kit itself. It took a letter to headquarters to get this stalled issue off the ground, but we feel there is a good chance this will resolve the issue. We have packed up the card for return shipment, and should have a new one installed in a week or so. We'll keep readers posted, and thank ADS for responding promptly to our plea for divine inetrvention.

3/4/2002 Update: ADS/Pyro tested the old bridge card and found it to be within spec, but shipped a new replacement bridge card anyway. We installed it and everything is working fine. We do not feel the problem, whatever it was, is widespread. We can recommend the manufacturer's sense of product integrity, and feel consumers can purchase ADS/Pyro products with minimal concerns. The drive kit units are simple, consumers can work on them, and there is not a lot to go wrong. Between 2/9 and 3/4, we did a clean install of Windows XP. We will never know for sure what the problem was, but we suspect there was an unknown driver conflict with the older and much-battered Windows 2000 installation.

Despite the amount of time it took to resolve the problem (we first wrote them 12/15/2001), ADS tried at all levels to diagnose and correct it, and they were always courteous and responsive. This was not a "showstopper" since the drive kit is an auxiliary backup device and cannot be used as a boot drive. Writing the executive offices got a stalled Tech Support investigation back on track. Our thanks to Daniel, Anthony and Adam for seeing this problem to a successful resolution.

We have removed the correspondence audit trail because (1) this vendor took the initiative to see it through to a fair resolution, and (2) we do not feel the problem is pervasive.

end 3/5/2002