Need Your Computer Help Please

[tjavery]

I'm in need of some computer help, please. I'm not able to view my USB card reader (Sandisk USB 2.0 CF reader) as a drive anymore. Used to, when I plugged it in, the reader would appear as a drive (i.e. the computer assigned it a drive letter), and I could open it then copy or add data to it. I'm using Windows XP Pro.

Now, when I plug it in, the computer seems to recognize it (the little green symbol appears in the bottom right) but it does NOT come up as a drive letter anymore. I cannot seem to find any way to access the contents of the card like I used to. I can still disconnect the USB reader via the little green symbol.

I uninstalled the drivers and removed it from the registry (the Sandisk stuff), then rebooted, and then reconnected the USB reader. It still will not come up as a drive.

I'm not sure what's going on, hopefully someone here can help. Thanks!

BTW, just to let you know what happened, I had my ipod plugged in one USB port and was letting it charge (itunes was not running). I then plugged in my Sandisk card reader in another USB port, the computer seemed to recognize it, and then itunes launched and connected my ipod. However, the Sandisk card reader seemed to have been lost in the mix.

Now, with itunes off and the ipod disconnected, I'm having this problem with my USB reader.

[JamesB]

TJ, have you gone into the "device manager" and checked the USB root hubs and all those goodies and settings.

I had some weird problem when using to many different type devices on 1 usb port (my telescope stuff). it some how got locked to only see 1 device. then again I only had 1 USB port on that laptop.

how many usb ports does your system have?

I got a little 4 port hub and made sure each device plugged into the same spot on the hub each time and it worked fine until that laptop died.

my new laptop has 2 ports and I have noticed that the mouse is some how locked to 1 of the ports and the other can use anything else.

James

[Hogleg 44]

I assume you have looked for it in "My Computer".
If you haven't, it may just be that Auto Run isn't working on it any longer.

[Dobick]

Just a thought, but you might try to kill the ituneshelper.exe and ipodservice.exe processes in task manager, and then try to reattach the card reader with the card.

I had those two services do some funky stuff on my computer a while back, so in my mind they are suspect.

[kenw]

card readers are notorious for dropping dead without warning, and most of us tend to blame the card or the computer.

Do you have another way to read the card? like cable from the camera?

[Mike G]

right click on my computer, choose manage, from there choose disk management .. does it show there? If so try right clicking it and choosing change drive letter, and then edit

[Stephen H]

We just got a new computer. Works great. On the old one, we kept having problems with our cable modem getting dropped. We'd reboot and it would show up as "Unknown device". Reboot again, and it's okay. The helpful little messages from Microsoft indicated it was a hardware problem with the modem, only it's working without fail now. So you should get a new computer to fix the problem. :)

[tjavery]

Thanks everyone for your responses! I knew I could count on y'all

Originally Posted by JamesB

...how many usb ports does your system have?

I got a little 4 port hub and made sure each device plugged into the same spot on the hub each time and it worked fine until that laptop died.

my new laptop has 2 ports and I have noticed that the mouse is some how locked to 1 of the ports and the other can use anything else.

It has 2 up front and 2 in the back. I had switched things around when I had both the ipod and CF reader plugged in at the same time (both in front). In other words, I previously had the card reader in slot 1 and then the ipod in slot 2 (but not at the same time). When the OOPS happened, I had the ipod in slot 1 and the reader in slot 2 and AT the same time.

Everything in the computer looks normal (except the disappearance of the drive letter when I plug the CF reader in). I've dug through the device manager, and nothing indicates that there is an error somewhere. All 4 USB managers indicate normal.

Originally Posted by Hogleg 44

I assume you have looked for it in "My Computer".
If you haven't, it may just be that Auto Run isn't working on it any longer.

Yup, first place I looked. I was quite baffled when I didn't see the new drive pop up after plugging in the reader. How do I check out Auto Run? How do I fix it if it's not working?

Originally Posted by Dobick

Just a thought, but you might try to kill the ituneshelper.exe and ipodservice.exe processes in task manager, and then try to reattach the card reader with the card.

I had those two services do some funky stuff on my computer a while back, so in my mind they are suspect.

I will certainly try that! Thanks!

Originally Posted by kenw

card readers are notorious for dropping dead without warning, and most of us tend to blame the card or the computer.

Do you have another way to read the card? like cable from the camera?

Yep, all this fun happened on my work computer. I'm now at home, and the reader works just fine here.

Originally Posted by nitromike

right click on my computer, choose manage, from there choose disk management .. does it show there? If so try right clicking it and choosing change drive letter, and then edit

No, not in disk management, but I got somewhere "deep" (I'm far from being a computer expert ) and found "MEDIA" (just above "disk management"). In the "media" window, the card reader appears. When I check out its properties, there are a lot of settings listed that don't make any sense to me. But there are no further buttons to check out (e.g. no "configure", "settings", etc.).

[tjavery]

Okay, here is a little follow-up on my problem:

The USB CF card reader appears under "Removable Storage > Media" in Computer Management. It did not (as of yesterday) appear in "Disk Management" further down on the list.



I killed ituneshelper.exe and ipodservice.exe processes in task manager, then plugged in my card reader this morning. The card reader then appeared in "Disk Management":



I then assigned it a path - an empty folder somewhere on my HD (note that it wouldn't assign a unique drive letter, but a path worked):



And now I can access the contents of the CF card via that folder on my HD. The card still does not show up as a drive like it used to (i.e. doesn't appear in My Computer).

I realize that this isn't fixed 100%, but it's a work-around and I'm able to access the data on my CF cards again!

Thanks everyone for your help!!!

[jerrykr]

I have a USB multi-card reader that behaves badly a whole lot like yours does.

I never could get it to be recognized by XP consistantly.

I got tired of fooling with it and put it away and bought a new one. Cost me less than $10 and the new one works fine all the time.

These are cheap little devices, and it seems that not all of them are created equal.

just my solution.

-=- Jerry -=-
/*