Dell Studio XPS 435 MT 64 Bit Core i7 "Card Reader"

Fireberd my computer did not crash. Just the card reader and those drives no longer showed with C:, D: and others.......Until I shutdown my computer then rebooted. A restart will not bring the drives back.  The untra III did the same thing to my daughters Dell. Now someone on the photo site told me the card reader needed more memory allocated to it and it would be OK. I don't know how to do this. Bill

Bill, I've run into incompatibility with the larger memory size cards, but in my case it didn't cause the PC to crash - it just ignored the card. 

Bill,  I never heard of allowing more memory. But it may be possible, but I don't know how.

Jack

I increased the Virtual memory. That is all I could find with the instructioins he gave me. Still did not work. I just won't use my Ultra III card unless it is necessary. Ashame my old HP wil read that card and my more modern and faster Dell won't. Bill

Chris,

This was the fastest reply I've ever seen from a Dell rep, so thank you.

Unfortunately it didn't fix the problem :-(

The SD card shows up in the Devices & Printers as a "Ricoh SD Disk Device" but no place else.  For instance, under Computer I see a section for Devices with Removable Storage, and the CDROM/DVD drive is shown... but nothing else.  I'll try looking in the MMC to see if it's throwing an error message into the logs.

--T

By default, Windows 7 does not show Meda Card Reader drive letters.
* Open Computer
* Click Tools- Folder Options
* In the General tab under Navigation, insert a check to Show all folders
* Click Apply
* Click the View tab
* Remove the check from Hide empty drives in the Computer folder
* Add a check to Show drive letters
* Click Apply- OK

Similarly, I have a Studio XPS 16 with and i7 / Windows7 and I can't get the machine to mount an SD card. It recognizes the card when inserted, shows the right device drivers installed, shows the card in the control panel devices list, but won't give me a drive icon for it.  :-(

I'm VERY surprised and disappointed that Dell hasn't jumped in here with some comment or feedback.

I'm using a Kingston 2GB card, btw.

--T

Hmmmmm...... If  you can transfer your photos to another PC I suggest formatting your SD card in your camera this often fixes problems, it also indicates the card system is suspect, good Luck.....

Agreed - the MMC pop-in for managing disks seems to see it, but thinks there is no primary partition on the SD card, which would imply a media problem.

I tried to create one right there, and do a fast format, but no-go.  I'll try to use my camera or an XP Pro machine to format it, and give it another try.  I'll post any non-discouraging results. :-)

--M

Sooo... still no luck getting this to work, and still no replies from anyone at Dell :-(

The card reader instantly recognizes and work fine with other types of cards, and my other laptop (Motion Computing LE1600) has no trouble with this card with. :-(

By default, Windows 7 does not show Meda Card Reader drive letters. * Open Computer * Click Tools- Folder Options * In the General tab under Navigation, insert a check to Show all folders * Click Apply * Click the View tab * Remove the check from Hide empty drives in the Computer folder * Add a check to Show drive letters * Click Apply- OK

Chris,

This doesn't work for me either.  I can live with the drives not showing up when empty.  They seem to work OK whenever I put media in one of the drives, although I haven't used the specific SD media that some here are having problems with.  The other slightly annoying issue with the card reader is that, every so often, the reader itself will cease to work, and the driver goes from Realtek 5151 Card Reader to Unknown Device with a yellow exclamation mark in Device Manager.  When this happens, I have to shut down, unplug the machine, wait until the green light is out on the PSU, then plug it back in and restart.  It seems that, whether it's due to a grounding issue, or the card reader h/w simply gets in an unrecoverable error state, that that's the only way to fix it.  Maybe you guys need to do a better job with grounding the device itself, or get with Realtek to get a better driver for Windows 7.

I got exactly the same issue. I only use 1GB SD Card. For couple times it will work but then it randomly stop working and all the drives for the card reader under My Computer all disappear and I have to "shutdown" my computer, restart won't work to get it working again. The card reader also showed as unknown device when it stops working. Can someone from dell provide a fix for this? this is really annoying since I use the card reader often.

It seems that the SD drivers my 1645 shipped with didn't do the job very well... so after searching and reading and experimenting, and waiting fruitlessly for any reply here by Dell,  I went to Ricoh's web site and got their latest SD drivers (which I think are now posted in Dell's driver section) and used them to UPDATE the default Microsoft SD Reader drivers on my 1645.  Voila!

Now Win 7 prompts me to "format the SD media" and the format actually seems to work this time.

I can now use my 2Gig and 4Gig SD (not SDHD!) cards, and it looks good so far.  I'll repost if this changes.

Good luck all!

--M

I have been recently having similar issues with my SD card reader on my Studio XPS 16, Windows 7 (64-bit), i7 Quad.  I got the laptop at the beginning of February and since day one it failed to read SD cards, including Micro SDs.  All of different size and manufacturers.  However the puzzling thing I discovered was that it was able to read Sony Memory Stick Due used in my camcorder without any trouble.  After waiting two weeks to hear back from dell the word is that the card ready is faulty.  Fortunately, I purchased the premium warranty.  Dell had ordered a new motherboard and will have a local technician dispatched to my home to perform the replacement.