BleepingComputer.com: Built In Card Reader - Drives Missing

Hi there,

I have a MAXDATA PC, which has a built in card reader, doesn't get used that much, about once every 2 weeks to read a microdrive, but it has 4 different slots, and there was 4 different removable drives in "my computer".

The problem is, the drives have vanished from "my computer", apart from one (K Drive), and when inserting any cards into the reader, they don't get detected, where as before the lights would flash and had no problem at all detecting memory cards.

Obviously one of the causes, could be that the reader could have just died, but it seems quite odd that the removable drives have vanished from the system, so can anyone give me any suggestions on how i can diagnose what the actual problem is?

Is there a possibility that the actual reader is still working, but some files/drivers have become corrupt/damaged/deleted and windows can't detect the drives anymore?

Franky

This post has been edited by Franky-99: 17 July 2007 - 06:50 PM

Go to control panel>system>hardware>device manager>disk drives and see if they're listed there. That's where mine are. Are there any yellow exclamation points by anything? They're listed separately, so right- click on the ones that don't work and select properties and select the driver tab. You can remove it from there. Reboot your machine and let Windows redetect them and reload the drivers
Mark

Thanks for the reply, I took a look and the drives are not showing in device manager, so what would be the next step?

Is it likely the card reader is screwed?

I beleive Card readers are connected to an internal USB terminal in the computer. Try reloading the USB drivers and see if that works.

Sneakycyber, i just noticed that in the system device, there is a question mark, and it says "usb mass storage device" has failed to start, But as all my USB points are working, then i didnt take much notice of this, as windows XP has lied to me in the past!

Maybe that is the problem? Will reload the drivers and see what happens.

Yes. Why yours showed up there and mine show up somewhere else is anybodies guess
Mark

Well i have tried reloading the drivers but that hasn't solved the problem.

However I don't think the card reader has died, because when i unistall the device and then use the add hardware feature, windows xp finds the device but says it cant start.
I am thinking it may be come connection with a new printed i installed, which is the canon mp600, as this installs also as a "USB Mass Storage" device and shows as a removable drive, as it has a card reader and i am pretty sure that since the canon was installed, the built in card reader became corrupted somehow in windows xp.

I could reformat windows and do a fresh install, which is no problem, pretty confident everything would be ok with a fresh install.

Before you do that why don't you uninstall the printer and see if it works. Sounds like you've got some conflicts somewhere. Have you checked Canon's site?
Mark