Internal card reader has vanished in XP Home

[madhobbit]

Hi,

I have an internal 6-in-1 memory card reader, USB 2.0, that has served
me faithfully until last weekend. While playing a game (Guild Wars, to
be specific), I heard the Windows "USB device removed" noise, for no
discernible reason. I've now realized that the card reader is the
likely culprit - the two removable storage devices have disappeared
from My Computer, and the device shows up as "Unknown Device" in Device
Manager.

I've tried most things I can think of:

- I've rebooted to safe mode, deleted all the USB devices, let Windows
redetect the devices, and everything gets detected except the card
reader...I just get the little bubble informing me that Windows could
not identify the device.

- I've unplugged every other USB device I have (printer, unpowered hub,
mouse) and repeated the above process.

- I've booted up with -no- USB devices, plugged in just the card reader
(which may not have been the best idea in the world, since it connects
directly to a motherboard header, but I was getting silly by this
point).

- I've tried the reader on both halves of the motherboard header (the
header supports two devices, and the card reader is only one).

- I've hooked up the motherboard header to my front-panel USB ports,
plugged another USB device into those, and verified that that ports
work, so I know the motherboard header is functioning fine.

- I've turned off USB 2.0 support in BIOS and tried using it as a USB
1.1 device, but that didn't work at -all-

- I've checked Event Log for any odd errors in the general timeframe of
the "device removed" sound (annoying since I don't remember exactly
when it happened) but haven't found anything.

There are two things I can think of that I haven't tried. I haven't
tried another USB 2.0 device, in case it's USB 2.0 in general that's
hosed, and not just the card reader. I have a USB key that I'll be
trying out, but it's out on loan right now, so I can't test it. I also
haven't tried rebooting to Linux, since I don't have a Linux partition
right now, and I don't have a live CD of any description handy. I may
end up trying this yet to figure out if it's a hardware problem or
simply an OS issue.

My system is built on a Gigabyte motherboard (I believe the GA-7N400
Pro2, but I wouldn't swear to it). It's an NForce2 Pro chipset, with an
Athlon XP 2800+, 2x512MB of DDR400 RAM, and Windows XP Home. Other
gadgetry (which I doubt is relevant, but you never know) includes a
LiteON DVD burner, Sapphire Radeon 9600, WD 80GB drive, and a Seagate
Barracuda V SATA drive. It's been wonderfully stable and predictable
ever since I built it about eight months ago...this is only the second
seriously weird thing it's done (the first was when my DVD burner
vanished from My Computer, but that took about fifteen minutes to track
down to a common Windows XP problem with a simple registry fix).

Any guesses? Generally I'm more than happy to track these sort of
problems down myself, but without the card reader, pulling pictures off
my camera is excruciating (half a gig over USB 1.1, anyone?), and three
hours of fiddling with it has gotten me exactly nowhere (except better
educated at the wide range of weird and wonderful ways that USB can
break under XP).

My next move will be to try the USB key on the front-panel USB ports,
hooked up to the header that the card reader was on. If it works fine
(at USB 2.0 speeds, too), I may just assume that the card reader has
committed suicide, and pick up a new one (probably external this time).
But if anyone has seen this sort of problem before and can think of a
way to fix it, I'd love to hear about it.

Oh, and while reinstalling Windows XP is always suggested, it's not
really an option for me for practical reasons. If I -know- that it's an
XP problem (i.e. my USB key also stops working, but Linux uses both
devices fine) then I'll consider going that route for repair, but it's
not viable simply as a troubleshooting step.

Thanks,
- Darryl

 

[Lawrence A. Wong]

Sounds like a driver issue.

First of all, go into the Device Manager, and make sure you have something
called a "Enhanced USB Controller" this is the portion of the system that
enables the USB2.0 interface.

Then check for those "Unknown Devices", Right-mouse click them and click on
Properties. windows will say there is a missing or invalid driver. Tell it
to search for an updated driver.

if that doesn't work, use the CD that it came with (or go through the
manufacturer's website of the card reader) and re-download drivers.


I'm 95% sure it's a software/driver issue rather than a hardware issue.

 

[madhobbit]

Thanks for the quick response (and sorry if this is a double-post...I'm
posting through Google Groups and it's acting a bit bizarre).

Sounds like a driver issue.

First of all, go into the Device Manager, and make sure you have something
called a "Enhanced USB Controller" this is the portion of the system that
enables the USB2.0 interface.

I have a "Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller", which doesn't
appear when I force USB 1.1 in the BIOS. I don't know if this is the
only "Enhanced" device I've ever had or not, but it's all I've got
now.

Then check for those "Unknown Devices", Right-mouse click them and click on
Properties. windows will say there is a missing or invalid driver. Tell it
to search for an updated driver.

Tried that last night, no luck. Windows can't identify the device,
can't find any drivers, and suggests I stick in a driver disk, which
leads to:

if that doesn't work, use the CD that it came with (or go through the
manufacturer's website of the card reader) and re-download drivers.

I don't think a driver disk came with it, and if one did, I've never
used it - the devices just showed up as USB mass storage devices using
the Windows native drivers. Mitsumi does have drivers up for download
(this is a Mitsumi 7-in-1 floppy/media reader, with the floppy drive
operating totally independantly).

Actually, I'm pretty sure that it used to appear as a USB hub with two
USB mass storage devices hooked into it; it definitely showed up as
two drive letters. It now only shows up as a single "Unknown Device".

I'm 95% sure it's a software/driver issue rather than a hardware issue.

That tends to be my assumption as well. The only reason I'm starting
to consider hardware failure is that it was working, working, working,
then -poof- vanished. I used it on Saturday or Sunday, no problems,
and on Monday it wasn't working. No new hardware has been installed,
no drivers updated, etc. (unless Windows Update did something
stealthily under cover of darkness, which is always possible). If I
have time tonight, I'll boot to a Linux live CD, and see if that can
detect the card reader.

Thanks for the advice!

- Darryl