Dell Inspiron N5010 card reader will not recognize driver no matter what i do.

Try this, it might work.

Go back in to device manager with your machine connected to internet. Right click the device again and choose to uninstall it. If it asks you to delete the driver associated with it choose yes. Restart the putr. It should recognise the 'new device' and install the driver from scratch. Another trick is making sure you try this both with and without an SD card in the slot.

If that doesn't work, I'd track down the part vendor for drivers, look for a Windows XP driver for it, or last resort try a driver update utility (like driver genius - they pay me zilch btw). If it won't have any of that. the part is mospossibly defective and needs to be replaced, or you might need someone to check for registry settings - this can be tricky and a registry backup can always be made before making any changes. If you locate the specific vendor part code, try to google it, or try to google it on Experts-exchange and see what comes up.

Good luck,

dailypcguy

In the device instance path it gives me vendor 0000 and device 0000.   I also last ditch tried "microsoft fix-it" with no results.

Hello and thanks for your reply,

First off I sadly can't uninstall the driver, there IS no driver, windows absolutely refuses to assign any driver at all to the device.  There is no driver for this device.  Windows can't even determine what "unknown device" is or even its category.  So most of the solutions don't work based on that since it needs a driver to tell it what the device is (an internal card reader) but it refuses to install any drivers because it doesn't know what it is.  Mobius loop.

When I restart it tells me there is a USB device malfunctioning.  When I go to it and try to troubleshoot and install a driver it will search online or go where i direct it on the PC.  Then it claims the device doesn't even need a driver to function.  I've never had a drive where the computer insisted no driver was necessary.  How do I defeat that? The realtek drivers all seem to be self-installing programs yet they do nothing.  I tried to link to the folders where the .tll files are in but that doesn't work.  I don't deal much with drivers therefore is the self-installing program actually supposed to do something on it's own ever?

The Driver Genius program doesn't even list the drive at all.  It's as if because its unknown then driver genius won't acknowledge the device is even attached.

Dell won't tell me (as far as I can find) what the vendor part is or even if realtek is the brand which I'm seriously doubting it is because I've tried realtek drivers for XP up till their latest on the website and nothing does anything with this device.  Other than ripping open the computer to look at it is there a way to find out this information?

Okay, you've got a problem. On another system I had a very similar problem with a HP Presario. It would occasionally fart and forget it had an SD card, display 'unknown device' in device manager - it even 'lost' it's DVD RAM drive sometimes after a reinstall OS or just for no obvious reason at all.  After searching for weeks I found out the manufacturer of the card reader and found a driver on their site that was different from the one on the HP site - for Windows 64-bit 9Not vista 64 bit) and it worked.

I'm suggesting that you not uninstall the driver, of course you can't uninstall drivers that aren't present. I was asking you to uninstall the 'unknown device', then if it asks you to delete the driver files choose yes. If the card reader shows up at all even as an unidentified device' it mean it is communicating in the BIOS level to some degree or it just wouldn't show up at all. You can uninstall an unknown device - I just double checked. Often the middleware drivers aren't even made available to MS (via windows update, and MS uses generic drives in Windows for a lot of products, and usually these work just fine. I was going to suggest cracking the case open, but if Driver genius can not locate it, and nothing else works, chances are it's stuffed. Have you tried inserting a Sony MMC? The one I had in the HP didn't recognise SD'd but worked ok with Sony sticks!!! Try to get your head around that pfft. the only other solutions, if it is really important to have one is get a usb stick you can insert memory cards in to, or pay someone competent to break it down, unsolder the crappy one and replace it with a good one - they're pretty cheap parts to buy and wouldn't take more then an hour to fix. Option A costs around $20, Option B around $150. I've soldered on into a 12v servier board myself and if I can do it, it can't be too difficult.

Gotta admit it would frustrate the hell outa me too, if it were mine!

Yes for the 8 in 1 card reader Realtek is the driver. I am also facing same problem. Earlier there was no issue but now i am unable to see the memory card reader. pls heelp

Yeah I've tried every combination of uninstall and restart and 5 different realtek drivers (I am convinced this product isn't realtek though as none of them work).  I've tried a few forms of media in the drive.  It knows something is in there but that the drive has no driver and can't find one locally or online (I think because windows 7 has no vendor or device information off of the device to go from)  WIndows knows it is some sort of USB device made by ???? and does ????

If I force it to accept a realtek driver it switches from error 43 to error 10, that is, that windows 7 claims that the driver doesn't go to the device and refuses to let the device run.  After it lets me know this it switches it back to unknown device so I can't get it to even keep a device name for more than a few moments.

Is it possible Dell put a hardware product in the machine that is incompatible with window 7?  I tried to look through windows 7's compatibility list but I wasn't finding any realtek card readers as being either compatible or non-compatible.  It could be as much of a windows 7 problem as a device problem.  I had windows ME for 3 years once.  I think you can imagine the amount of time I spent trying to explain to companies that their products that they think should be working with ME (in theory) don't actually work with ME and they should have actually tested them on the system first before slapping the compatibility information on the box.

And yeah it might be "stuffed".  I wouldn't be as frustrated if the device had become stuffed through time and wear.  But it has never worked from the moment I pulled it out of the dell box.  The fact that the product arrived to me from Dell "stuffed" is pretty enraging and says something about dell.  

Thank you mohseeniqbal for pointing out this thread, I am sorry that I have not stepped in sooner.

The correct driver for the card reader should be downloaded from the following link.

www.dell.com/.../DriverFileFormats

If you notice any "unknown devices" in device manager please uninstall them first, and do not accept any prompts from Windows to install drivers.

I am just curious, what happens when you insert media into the reader? Does it show up in "computer" as a drive? Do you get an error or does nothing happen at all?

If the problem continues you are looking at one or two things, Windows is corrupted to the point that it doesn't see the reader, or the reader is defective.

You options will be to reinstall Windows, if the card reader worked in the past you may even try system restore, or pc restore, or have the card reader replaced.

You can find more on reimaging the driver and system restore from the following link.

support.dell.com/.../document

My suggest is try system restore first, and if that fails and you have backed up your data try PC restore.

If you decide to have the card reader replaced first, and that fixes the problem, great news.  If however the problem continues then the only option left will be to reimage the drive.

TB

rewetzel1

Just as long as you are removing the "unknown device" first from device manager and the installing the driver you should be alright unless Windows is corrupted.  If this happened "out of box" I can't even suggest running PC restore.  If you like shoot me a private message with your contact info and service tag I can research service options.  If  we do replace the reader though and the problem continues, please understand the next option will likely be to reimage the drive.

TB

Hi Terry,

I've tried that download about 6 times now.  Do you have a suggestion of order for doing this that maybe I am just not doing right?  I uninstall the device.  restart.  Ignore it's prompts.  Install the driver.  Restart.  Then try to go into the device manager and link to the installed driver to try and link it to "unknown device".  I can get it to maybe accept the driver by force but it then gives me error 10 and refuses to allow the device to be used.  After that it "helps me" by removing the driver and making it "unknown device" again.

When I insert media into the drive it doesn't do anything nor does it show anything under "my computer"  When I restart the computer with media in the drive it lets me know there is a "usb device" malfunctioning.  When I restart the computer without media in the drive it does give me any messages regarding the drive.

I don't think system restore or so on will work because the drive has never worked.  I'm assuming if this is a windows issue than I was given a computer with corrupted windows right out of the box. If it was a defective reader than I received a defective reader straight from dell.  I received an error about the drive the moment I booted it up directly from receiving it from dell.  At the time I didn't worry about it much as I didn't need to use the drive and assumed it would be an easy fix of installing the drivers.  In fact I contacted Dell support about the matter and was mailed a 2 cds of the drivers, a reinstallation of the windows 7 OS, and mysteriously a copy of roxio burn (which wasn't already installed on the computer, was it supposed to be?)  I should have taken care of this sooner and gone through the process of trying to install the driver and finding out that doesn't work.  Actually I probably just should have mailed the laptop back to dell to begin with instead of asking them for the driver cd.

It's working absolutely fine :)

Thank you for providing the correct driver link. Thanks Terry!

Isn't it great when things just work out? Correct drivers are a great place to start!!

Glad everyone's happy. Glad Terry had the sense to go there and check the basics. I'ver never had any dramas with Dell support, they're honestly good peeps.

Peace.

Hi,

I am also having the  same issue where in the memory card is not detected on my inspiron n5010.

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