USB Compact Flash card problem solved ---- maybe

[az-willie]

I have a camera and a card reader that quit showing up in Windows Explorer
after installing SP2.

Emailing tech support just got suggestions to set lastdrive to Z which was
no help.

Today I talked with a human being on the phone at Sandisk ( they make the
card reader ) and he said this was a known problem with SP2 ... it doesn't
put enough power to the devices to get it assigned a drive letter.

Exactly how this works, I dunno. But he said if I plug them ( camera or
card reader ) into a self powered USB hub they would work.

So now I gotta spend another $50 bucks on a hub ( darn threw one away a
few weeks ago although it was for USB 1 ) because my $98 operating system
has a bug they haven't bothered to fix.

Strange there is enough power to light the led power on indicator but not
enough to actually work the device. Mysteriously, software written to
import from removable devices aka Pikassa can find the card to get
pictures from it ( so can the camera and card reader software ) but
programs can't see the reader to write to it as before SP2.

Grrrrrrr.

 

[Marc Reinig]

Uh, the OS does not control the amount of power going to your device. Your
device needs more power than an unpowered hub can supply, so it operates
marginally. SP2 is more strict in how bad a device can be before it stops
talking to it. But, the bottom line is that it is not the OS, you are not
supplying your device with enough power.

Powered hubs should be around $25 or so.

-Marco

========================
Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick Observatory
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics

 

[az-willie]

Uh, the OS does not control the amount of power going to your device.
Your device needs more power than an unpowered hub can supply, so it
operates marginally. SP2 is more strict in how bad a device can be before
it stops talking to it. But, the bottom line is that it is not the OS,
you are not supplying your device with enough power.

Powered hubs should be around $25 or so.

-Marco

========================
Marc Reinig
UCO/Lick Observatory
Laboratory for Adaptive Optics

================
Strange thing is though, the camera worked fine before SP2. After SP2 it
was no longer showing up in Explorer and programs such as Paint Shop Pro
no longer could find it to save pictures to the memory card. Worked fine
before SP2.

So then I got a Sandisk card reader thinking since it was a dedicated
device it should show up. Indeed it should according to Sandisk except
they claim the problem is with SP2. They claim that if I roll back to
SP1 the card reader and / or camera will work just fine again.

I don't really want to go back to SP1 so it appears I will have to buy a
powered hub.

4 port powered USB 2.0 hubs are showing up in my searches at $49.99 or
thereabouts.

Another mysterious thing is that with the card reader empty it does not
show up in Explorer. If I put a card with no pictures in it ... it doesn't
show up. If I put a card that has pictures on it voila! it shows up in
Explorer. It suddenly has a drive letter assigned even though SP2 is
supposedly not giving it enough power. However, no programs can find it to
save files to it. Programs written to retrieve pictures from the card such
as Picassa and the software that came with the card can find it though and
retrieve pictures but they can not find the card to write to it!!!!

It's a one way street. And, since cards without pictures don't show up I
can't save to an empty card.

These symptoms make me believe that it is an SP2 problem but probably not
one of not enough power being applied.

I may bite the bullet and call Microsoft and pay to find out if they know
of a solution. Probably not.