# USB 2.0 Card Reader on Windows 7



## paul.s (Jul 25, 2008)

Digital Camera Buffs going to Windows 7:

My PNY USB 2.0 "8 in 1" Card Reader appears to be a "legacy" product. The reader handles my C3030 digital camera's "SmartMedia" cards and is indispensable to me. The reader still works great on XP, but doesn't work on Windows 7. You insert it into the USB and the hardware found noise is made and to varying degrees the drives show up in explorer but NO drives (SD, mmc, smartmedia, ms pro, ... ) are readable.

I've spent some time removing/reinstalling "usb mass storage drives" and trying XP mode, which does not seem to have anything to do with USB, all to no avail so far.

Any ideas on how I can get this reader working on Windows 7?

Any suggestions for a SmartMedia reader for Windows 7?

Has anyone gotten "legacy" camera USB port products running through XP mode in Windows 7?


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## j_mason (Aug 8, 2010)

I have a generic Chinese card reader that worked great in Win XP; but my new netbook, which is running Win 7, wouldn't recognize it. My card reader has no brand name or model on it; so trying to find a working driver was completely hit or miss.

I spent the better part of 2 days downloading & installing various card reader drivers with no luck. Finally, I found a program called Hardware Helper, which got me on the right track. http://www.pchelpsoft.com/hardware-helper/

I installed Hardware Helper, plugged in my card reader, and ran a diagnosis of my Win 7 drivers. It said that my Alcor Micro USB 2.0 Card Reader Driver was out of date.

To make a long story short ... Hardware Helper wouldn't actually update my drivers unless I subscribed to their service (at a cost of something like $30/year). Even so, it did give me the name of the driver I need ... Alcor Micro USB 2.0 Card Reader.

Rather than paying for their service, I Googled on the driver name, found it on a free download site and installed it.

My cheap Chinese card reader now works great with Win 7.

I don't know if this solution will work for you; but it's worth a try.

Good Luck.
Jane


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## paul.s (Jul 25, 2008)

Thanks J.

I have now just spent two days going through everything with your suggestion of Hardware Helper. HH was extremely useful in a complete review of all my drivers (THANKS) and in the end was more useful in a few ways than the software that I used the last time I did this, which was Driver Detective (http://www.drivershq.com/).

However, my particular problem is unsolved.

In the end I find the following (which is more obvious to me using Driver Detective than Hardware Helper in this case)...

The drivers that my USB muticard reader is trying to unsuccessfully use and neither DD or HH is finding updates for are:
Generic USB Storage Device CFC
Generic USB Storage Device MMC
Generic USB Storage Device MSC
Generic USB Storage Device SMC
USB Mass Storage Device

as the manufacturer of my drive has indicated no W7 updates will be available it would have to be that updates to these drivers would have to solve this problem, I guess.


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## j_mason (Aug 8, 2010)

Hi Paul, 

I guess I just got lucky that there was an updated driver for my particular card reader. Sorry things didn't work out for you. It is so frustrating when Microsoft upgrades and then our old hardware quits working; but on the up side, buying a new Win 7 compatible card reader won't cost you a fortune.

The only other thing I can think of is maybe trying to find an older driver (Wix XP or Vista) for your PNY card reader and see if it will install under Win 7. Just another idea ... not sure if it will work.

Good Luck,
Jane


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## paul.s (Jul 25, 2008)

The older drivers wouldn't work.

Updates for my W7 PC Ricoh driver were available. They didn't help. Anyway, the whole matter for me is the *SmartMedia card reader* which the Ricoh reader doesn't support anyway.

I'm not donating the XP computer yet! I'll search for SmartMedia readers on W7 again in a month or two. Of course right now if I am out in the middle of nowhere trying to reclaim space on my smartmedia cards I'm at the mercy of finding someone or some cafe with an XP.

Designing obsolescence? <I don't see a puking smiley>. I'm thinking USB is on its way along with the serial port.

cheers


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