# Card reader not reading cards!



## danskibee (Jun 28, 2003)

Hey everyone,

I bought a new desktop not too long ago with a 5 in 1 card reader built into the front of the tower under the CD drives. Up until recently those readers have worked fine and I use them with my digi cam SD card and my nokia MMC card to transfer files better than USB cables.

Anyway, recently when putting in cards, the usual XP box that asks you what you want to do with the files has stopped popping up, and to my surprise, when going into My Computer, the card reader's are no longer listed as removable devices! Before they were all present as devices with removable storage but now it's like they don't exist!

I have checked the connections going from the card reader to the motherboard and no wires are loose or anything, it's not like they would anyway, they were working fine before and nothing's been moved.

I emailed Acer and they didn't tell me anything, they said to do a full system restore to factory settings, but that would remove everything on this computer, and I don't want to do that cos there's loads of stuff on it I would need to backup and keep.

Is there anything anyone can suggest? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the hardware, it just doesnt seem to exist under devices.

Please help, I don't want to go back to USB cables!

Danny


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Follow these steps exactly.

Unplug ALL USB devices.
Open Device Manager.
View, Show Hidden Devices.
Uninstall all devices under USB Controllers.
Uninstall all devices under Storage Volumes. Say no to any reboot prompts until you are finished. Also, if a Storage Volume doesn't uninstall, ignore it and move to the next one.
If you have a yellow ? with unknown devices, uninstall all of the entries there as well.

When this is done, reboot TWICE.

Reconnect the USB devices and see if they're recognized properly.


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## danskibee (Jun 28, 2003)

JohnWill said:


> Follow these steps exactly.
> 
> Unplug ALL USB devices.
> Open Device Manager.
> ...


Hi I read this reply in another thread about a card reader and followed them exactly, it did indeed reset all my USB devices, but the card reader is not one of them and so didn't work. The card reader is still not recognised by the system and thus does not read any cards.

Any other suggestions?

Danny


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I'd try it on another system, because it sounds like the card reader bit the big one.


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## danskibee (Jun 28, 2003)

That's strange, I've only had it like 3 months and only used it on and off, it's not like I've been shoving things in it daily. It was working fine, then it stopped being recognised, then it came back and worked for a day or two - now I just don't know how to get the system to know they're there.

It can't just be broken and that's that.


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## Perfesser (Jun 2, 2003)

"I'd try it on another system, because it sounds like the card reader bit the big one." 
I agree with that. The easiest way to check is to try another reader or move it to another computer.
From MANY years of working with electronics in general: most solid state devices fail in the first few months; if they make it past that they last forever.


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