I had a somewhat similiar problem with a USB device, but under XP. I plugged it in, Windows found it but nothing happened, I though that I might have to reboot the computer for it to come up under Explorer but no, nothing happened. I fooled around for a while and suddenly it just appeared, and since that it has worked fine.
Strange and annoying. Oh, and it too worked perfectly under Linux. It's not strange that people get annoyed with windows, it's totally unlogical, I have used Windows far more than I have used Linux but I still think in Linux it is easier to understand what's going on, but on the other hand, linux structure of files is a mess
/bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin
And about the "having to reinstall the OS" problems, this has never happened to me in any OS except Windows, I usually reinstall Linux every now and then because it's grows huge with programs I'm installing and testing, but Windows has actually crashed on me once and showed a message telling me I had to reinstall windows.
