Card reader disappears after inserting a card?

[Slider76]

I have a multi-slot card reader that has been working fine with my laptop for
serveral months. Then one day out of the blue it stoped working. What happens
is:

I plug the card reader into the USB port and within a few seconds, 4 new
drive letters show up in my directory tree. I then insert an SD card into the
appropriate slot in the card reader and within 2 seconds the 4 drive letters
disappear from the directory tree.

I have spent hours trouble-shooting this issue to no avail. I have plugged
the card reader into a different USB port, plugged it into a USB hub, tried
reloading drivers, deleted the card reader in Device Manager and reinstalled
it and still nothing. And yes, I have installed this card reader in 2 other
machines and it works fine. I also have 2 other card readers that exhibit the
same symtoms when I plug them into my machine. Well, actually one exhibits
the exact same symtoms and the other does nothing at all (and it is a brand
new Verbatim).

Oh, and just for the record, I have several USB flash memory sticks in
various capacities and they all work fine.

 

[smlunatick]

I have a multi-slot card reader that has been working fine with my laptopfor
serveral months. Then one day out of the blue it stoped working. What happens
is:

I plug the card reader into the USB port and within a few seconds, 4 new
drive letters show up in my directory tree. I then insert an SD card intothe
appropriate slot in the card reader and within 2 seconds the 4 drive letters
disappear from the directory tree.

I have spent hours trouble-shooting this issue to no avail. I have plugged
the card reader into a different USB port, plugged it into a USB hub, tried
reloading drivers, deleted the card reader in Device Manager and reinstalled
it and still nothing. And yes, I have installed this card reader in 2 other
machines and it works fine. I also have 2 other card readers that exhibitthe
same symtoms when I plug them into my machine. Well, actually one exhibits
the exact same symtoms and the other does nothing at all (and it is a brand
new Verbatim).

Oh, and just for the record, I have several USB flash memory sticks in
various capacities and they all work fine.

I have seen this happen on my own PC. Somehow, the card reader is
confusing the XP. Plug the card reader "empty" onto XP and in Device
Manager, then uninstall its entries. Then disconnect and reconnect
the reader. This should force XP to re-detect the reader and re-
install it correctly.

 

[Slider76]

Almost but no love. I plugged in the card reader, deleted it from Device
Manager then plugged it back in. Although I did not get the usual "found new
hardware" and "installing new hardware" messages, it did show up in my
directory tree after about 30 seconds.

I then plugged an SD card into the slot. This time the drive letters did not
disappear but it did not automatically read the card and show the files
either. So I clicked on the SD folder in the directory tree. The files that
were on the SD card showed up, again after about 30 seconds. I was going to
delete these files but when I started to highlight them, the folder
disappeared and put me back to Control Panel, which then locked up the
Control Panel program. I then had to close the Control Panel via Task Manager.

It appears, as suggested, the the card reader is confusing XP. If I don't
get any other suggestions, I guess I will have to break down and call Dell.

 

[smlunatick]

Almost but no love. I plugged in the card reader, deleted it from Device
Manager then plugged it back in. Although I did not get the usual "found new
hardware" and "installing new hardware" messages, it did show up in my
directory tree after about 30 seconds.

I then plugged an SD card into the slot. This time the drive letters did not
disappear but it did not automatically read the card and show the files
either. So I clicked on the SD folder in the directory tree. The files that
were on the SD card showed up, again after about 30 seconds. I was going to
delete these files but when I started to highlight them, the folder
disappeared and put me back to Control Panel, which then locked up the
Control Panel program. I then had to close the Control Panel via Task Manager.

It appears, as suggested, the the card reader is confusing XP. If I don't
get any other suggestions, I guess I will have to break down and call Dell.

Check with this:

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtrouble_e.html

I hpe the web page author is reading here (as they did before.)

 

[Slider76]

Thank you for the reply and the informative link. In reading through it,
although there is some very valuable information, it doesn't appear that
there is anything directly related to my problem. At this point, I don't
really want to start messing with my registry as my laptop is only 6 months
old with SP3...so faily clean (and yes, the card reader was working fine for
several weeks after the SP3 upgrade).

I will contact Dell this week and if there is a possibility that it is
registry related, I would prefer to have them "walk me throught it" while on
the phone. Thanks again for your interest and assistance. Also, if Dell is
able to give me a solution, I will post it back here for the benefit of other
readers.