New VM with Acronis Rescue Media CD -- no USB drive?

So, I'm evaluating Parallels 5 (I use Fusion primarily.)

One of the things Fusion does very well is that it will boot a new VM from Acronis True Image 11's "Recovery CD", allow me to grab my Windows-formatted USB hard disk while the CD is booting and install Windows 7 from a sysprepped Acronis Image on the external hard disk.


Parallels, on the other hand...

Will boot from the Acronis CD correctly (mouse works properly, etc...)

Will allow me to quickly go to Devices --> USB --> HDD (and I can see my mounted external HDD vanish from the Mac Desktop) while the Acronis CD is booting the VM.

But Acronis -- when finally booted -- is *not* recognizing that there's a USB hard disk connected to the "computer".


No amount of "refreshing" within this Parallels VM is allowing me to see the USB hard disk to install the Windows image from.


Has anybody been able to make this work some other way with Acronis TI 11? This is one of those "show-stopper" issues that would rule out using/recommending Parallels in the future.

Thanks!

- Steve