System startup fails with Epson All in One printer

I am currently using a Dimension 8300 running Windows XP Home.  Plenty of Ram and HD space.

 

I recently purchased an Epson RX500 all in one printer.  Installation went perfectly and everything was great until I did a restart of the system.  Startup would progress until it would hangup and tell me that it had failed at checkpoint USBd.  As soon as I disconnected the USB cable to the printer startup would finish.  If I wait until startup is finished and plug in the printer, everything works great.  I contacted Epson, following is their reply:

 

This issue has been reported on the Dell Dimension 4500c and the Sony Vaio
RX series of computers, though it may also occur on some other computers.
When the BIOS of these computers sends the query during bootup to the Epson
multi-function device, the query is ignored by the Epson product which
causes the computer to hang during its boot. This problem has been reported
on some Dell 4500 computer systems using the Phoenix BIOS PLUS v.1.10 A06
ROM chip and on some Sony Vaio RX systems using the Award Medallion BIOS
v.6.0 ROM chip. The best thing we can suggest to do would be to contact
your computer vendor for a possible update\resolution for this issue.

As a workaround, disconnect the multi-function device from the computer and
turn it off. Reboot the computer, then reconnect the multi-function device
to the computer’s USB port and power it back on. This will allow for normal
operation of both your computer and your all-in-one.