laptop card reader won't read memory cards

I have a Dell studio laptop running Vista 32bit with a camera card
reader built in, but when I insert a memory card in the slot it doesn't
show up at all.

When I plug it in, you can hear the sound of a usb device being
recognized by windows, and the safely remove icon shows up on the
desktop system tray, but the card doesn't appear in windows explorer. It
shows up as a removable device in disk management but has no letter and
if you try to format it, disk management report that there is an error
and I should try restarting disk management or the computer (that
doesn't work either).

I suspect that there is a driver fault but I have reinstalled the memory
card reader drivers and nothing seems amiss in device manager

Can anyone please advise if this might be a hardware fault or if there
is some setting or software that needs to be installed for the card
reader to work correctly? What are the drivers that it needs?

I reformatted the computer a while back and I installed all the device
drivers but I may have missed some small patch setting to make the card
reader work, although there are no warnings in device manager about
non-functioning hardware.

Thanks for any advice.

Have you tried this:
Click start>Computer>that particular drive letter>Right-click
it>Properties>Set up autorun options.
--
Mad Mike


"Luis Ortega" wrote:

> I have a Dell studio laptop running Vista 32bit with a camera card
> reader built in, but when I insert a memory card in the slot it doesn't
> show up at all.
>
> When I plug it in, you can hear the sound of a usb device being
> recognized by windows, and the safely remove icon shows up on the
> desktop system tray, but the card doesn't appear in windows explorer. It
> shows up as a removable device in disk management but has no letter and
> if you try to format it, disk management report that there is an error
> and I should try restarting disk management or the computer (that
> doesn't work either).
>
> I suspect that there is a driver fault but I have reinstalled the memory
> card reader drivers and nothing seems amiss in device manager
>
> Can anyone please advise if this might be a hardware fault or if there
> is some setting or software that needs to be installed for the card
> reader to work correctly? What are the drivers that it needs?
>
> I reformatted the computer a while back and I installed all the device
> drivers but I may have missed some small patch setting to make the card
> reader work, although there are no warnings in device manager about
> non-functioning hardware.
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>

Mick Murphy wrote:
> Have you tried this:
> Click start>Computer>that particular drive letter>Right-click
> it>Properties>Set up autorun options.

It doesn't show up anywhere on that list so `I can't set anything for it.

Luis,
Have you reviewed the instructions that came with the camera on how to
format the camera card for use with a Windows system when you first install
it in the camera?
"Mick Murphy" <MickMurphy@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1A83F228-E4AF-429A-B7EF-B14DFE6DACA3@microsoft.com...
> Have you tried this:
> Click start>Computer>that particular drive letter>Right-click
> it>Properties>Set up autorun options.
> --
> Mad Mike
>
>
> "Luis Ortega" wrote:
>
>> I have a Dell studio laptop running Vista 32bit with a camera card
>> reader built in, but when I insert a memory card in the slot it doesn't
>> show up at all.
>>
>> When I plug it in, you can hear the sound of a usb device being
>> recognized by windows, and the safely remove icon shows up on the
>> desktop system tray, but the card doesn't appear in windows explorer. It
>> shows up as a removable device in disk management but has no letter and
>> if you try to format it, disk management report that there is an error
>> and I should try restarting disk management or the computer (that
>> doesn't work either).
>>
>> I suspect that there is a driver fault but I have reinstalled the memory
>> card reader drivers and nothing seems amiss in device manager
>>
>> Can anyone please advise if this might be a hardware fault or if there
>> is some setting or software that needs to be installed for the card
>> reader to work correctly? What are the drivers that it needs?
>>
>> I reformatted the computer a while back and I installed all the device
>> drivers but I may have missed some small patch setting to make the card
>> reader work, although there are no warnings in device manager about
>> non-functioning hardware.
>>
>> Thanks for any advice.
>>