Need help reading SD card

[ratcheer]

When I place a Compact Flash card in my 8-way card reader, the green light comes on and a removable drive icon pops up in XP SP2 Explorer. But last night, I got a new Canon camera that uses SD cards. When I put one of those in the reader, the green light comes on, indicating that the reader sees it, but no drive icon appears in Windows.

The reader is part of a Western Digital Media Center external hard drive. I consulted the documentation, it does support SD cards and I am to expect a drive icon. The Windows Event viewer does recognize that "The Removable Storage service entered the running state." (Event 7036)

I don't know what is wrong. Any ideas?

Thanks

[Austin]

I had the same thing happen with my reader. The green light came on but it was not recognized. I turned off my computer and disconnected the reader. I rebooted and then connected my reader. It seemed to solve the problem.

[ratcheer]

Thanks, I will try that right now.

Tim

[ratcheer]

Well, that got the drive icons into Explorer, but when I try to open them, one of them says "Please insert a disk" and the other one says "The drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"

I know it is formatted, because it has pictures on it and I can view them in the camera.

I am lost.

Tim

[Austin]

Tim, go on the reader's website and look for updated drivers for your computer. I hope this helps.

[ratcheer]

Okay, that helped a little bit. I found a new driver (dated 2004, but they still listed it as an update) on the Western Digital site and installed it. Now, instead of generic removable drive icons, I have an icon for a Compact Flash card and one for a Secure Digital card.

However, even with the SD card in the reader and the green light on on the reader, it now says to insert a card. I suppose that is better than "The drive is not formatted", but I still cannot read my card. :crying:

Tim

[Austin]

Tim, the only thing I can think of is that perhaps the contacts are dirty. Wipe the sd card contacts with a clean cloth. Blow out the contacts on the reader with compressed air. Otherwise, you may need to contact support services. Good luck.

[ouch]

If there's anything in this world that I can't stand, it's things that don't work.

[_JP_]

Well, that got the drive icons into Explorer, but when I try to open them, one of them says "Please insert a disk" and the other one says "The drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"

I know it is formatted, because it has pictures on it and I can view them in the camera.

I am lost.

Tim

So that you can save the current batch of pictures on that card to the computer, put the card back in the camera, plug the camera into the USB port and copy them over. After the pictures are saved, I would then try reformatting the card in the camera.

Something else that you can try (after saving the pics) is to download and install Western Digital Tools. That might help to find out what the problem is and offer a solution for it (such as installing the correct driver).

[ratcheer]

Thanks, JP. I have reformatted the card in the camera a few times, already. But, I will go look for the WD Tools.

Also, in my search for a solution, I have found that some card readers won't read a 2 GB SD card. But, my WD documentation specifically says it will read cards up to 4 GB.

Tim

[ratcheer]

Okay, now we are getting somewhere. I found and installed the WD Diagnostic tools. Both the SD reader and the CF reader seem to pass the test.

Tim

[ratcheer]

Here is the latest: My son bought me a new SanDisk 12 in 1 card reader at Wal-Mart. I plugged it in to a USB port, plugged the 2 GB SD card into it and, voila, the files were instantly readable. Also, in Windows, I can do Properties on the disk and it is formatted as a simple FAT file system.

I can only conclude that something is wrong with the Western Digital reader. I went back to the documentation and verified that it says it can handle SD cards up to 4 GB. Yet, it works with a 16 MB SD card, but not with a 2 GB SD card.

So, I opened a trouble with Western Digital technical support. I'm waiting to hear what they have to say.

Tim