Barry,
Yes I have been connecting directly from the 9800 USB to the PC USB slot. I did notice that in device manager the PC knows it is a Philips device. I also know that the PC has assigned a drive letter to the 9800 as I can see the drive and the letter in computer management. The problem is that I cannot try Luukske's method of updating firmware unless I can see the 9800 in Windows explorer--which I can't--so that I can drag over the maestro zip file over to the 9800.

thx