Acer notebook drivers - PCMCIA card reader

Hi, my name is pedro silva and i'm from portugal.
I aquired a Acer 5601 WLMI with these specs:
-intel core duo t2050 1.60Ghz
-100gb HDD
-2 GB Ram DDRII 533Mhz
-ATI mobiliti x1300 with 128Mb dedicated GDDR3 memory, up to 512 with
Hypermemory feature
-Texas instruments Flash card reader and pcmcia card reader.

the problem is:

i have a UMTS pcmcia modem, a Novatell Merlin U530 pcmcia card, and after i
install the software provided by the mobile operator, when it asks to insert
the card to configure it, it's asks me to choose the connection tipe:
parallel port, bluetooth, serial port or com port, but it doesn't recognize
the card.
I asked the operator for the latest, wich they made available on their
website, and told me that the support for Vista was ok, but the problem
continues, so i guess that it could be a crad reader related problem.

Any lights on this matter?

Thanks,
Pedro Silva
pedrosilva@acimenteiralouro.pt