"System Protection" eventually finds drives.

Many programs (e.g. REVO or Windows Updates) perform an automatic "Create a Restore Point" prior to doing their thing. By right clicking Computer and choosing "System Protection", one can create a system restore point. I can't. The problem; Vista finds the Drives only after about 15 hours! Thereafter, it appears to work fine(ish). My system is a DELL XPS M1730 with a solid state drive and a regular drive. I have set the System Restore to look at only the solid state drive (after one of those 15 hour waits). I recently installed Service Pack 2 which went well. The problem preceded that installation as it was an attemp at resolution. Other things that I have done included removing McAfee (I disliked anyway) and replacing it with Panda Cloud. I have been running Vista for barely over a year and would just like to solve this nagging problem. The issue started about 6 months ago. It wasn't an issue in the beginning. Unfortunately, I can't pinpoint any event. Moving to Windows 7 might solve the problem (it better), but I am loathe to make the move because I run a version of MathCad that Mathsoft would make me pay for again if I had to a) restore or b) change operating systems.