Windows XP and card readers

[eric]

In a burst of madness I recently changed from Win98 to XP, (I won't call it an upgrade). Since then, using my card reader has become a hit and miss affair. XP would recognise the one I had been using for years with 98 but wouldn't read from it. Giving up the struggle I bought a new one which I was assured would work with XP. It does, but only when it's in the right mood, I had to reboot the computer three or four times today before it would read from the card reader. I have read somewhere that XP doesn't handle card readers well, is anybody else having this problem, or more to the point, has anybody solved it?

[Bill C]

Eric, actually I've found XP to be much more stable than previous releases of Windows. Is your reader USB? Do you leave it plugged in, or do you plug it in when you go to use it? Standard brand of reader?
Bill

[eric]

Bill,
Yes they are both USB readers, the original was a plug-in unit which I only plugged in as required, the new one is fixed into the computer. It fits into a spare 3.5" slot and plugs into a USB riser on the mainboard. The original is a Maxell, the other is some brand of which I have never heard, but down here in OZ that is par for the course. The factory in China probably makes tee shirts in the morning and computer parts in the afternoon, the night shift makes toasters and other kithchen gadgets.
XP may be a little more stable than 98, but having had it crash about 3 times today already and what with compatibility problems I wonder if it was worth the trouble and expense. I only got it because I intend to update to Photoshop CS in the not too distant future.

[frankgh]

IMHO XP is the closest Microsoft ever got to getting it right. There is no telling what is going on in your computer based on what is posted here. Sounds like it was an upgrade and not a clean install in a new system. XP will not play well with some older hardware. I lost the use of a USB webcam. You must have the right drivers installed. If you can be more specific about what hardware you have, Processor, motherboard, ram, video card etc etc we might be of more help. If your new reader was made for XP and you are still getting crashes, I suspect there is something else amiss in your system.

[eric]

Frank,
It was a clean install, emptied a disk, reformatted it, then let XP Pro go. XP won't let me use the drivers that came with the reader, it insists on using it's own. Being an old DOS man from way back I'm not frightened of being in charge of my own destiny. Bill sets Windows up to suit the lowest common denominator. To call an OS professional when it has cartoon characters sniffing and wagging tails during the search function to me is just plain childish. I don't like the way Windows decides what folders I want to open up with. If it's a professional system then those with the knowledge or courage should be allowed to set it up as they wish. By the way, the crashes today were initiated by my poking around with the scanners and cameras doodab that is part of Windows. I'm not going to have another look at it and I bet I can't get rid of it. Lets face it, when you start fiddling with Windows XP, you really are living on the edge.

[stevebri]

I have just replaced my external card reader for one like yours. Mine has a spare front loading USB 2 port as well, however I have always found with new 'devices' it is best to load the software before plugging anything in.

Anyway, mine worked second attempt. After not getting the drives recognised I unloaded the drivers (mine worked in XP pro, latest SP).

Also on the riser on the mobo (mine is an Asus A7v8x-x there are 5 pins with 4 below, my reader came with four connectors 2 with three pins and two grounds with one.
After fiddling around, I realised that one set of (3 + 1) was for the reader slots and the other for the front USB port.

It now all works, and when I stuff a microdrive in various icons show what type of card is for each slot.

Maybe you can draw something from my experience.

But I stand by XP often not recognising anything unless you load software first, then plug in.

Do you get the device to be recognised in device manager...?

Steve

[Ol'coot]

Eric,

I am using XP pro with my Zio USB card reader and find that is works better with XP than when I was using Win 98. I also agree with some of the other post here that you may not have a clean install with the upgrade and that XP drivers for your reader are a must. I would never switch back to Win 98 I have had great results with XP and almost never crashes. Only one lock up and crash in nearly 2 years of using XP . This was an everyday problem with for me with Win 98. Gool luck on figuring out the problems.

[eric]

Thanks for all the replies. I did read on another forum that posters were having problems with XP and card readers so assumed that my problems were universal.As I said above, it could not have been a cleaner installation. I have two hard drives and I cleaned one of them right off, then reformatted, then installed. But I'm not going to worry about it any more, if I have to reboot to get the reader to work, then I'll live with it. I'll just stick another pin in my Bill Gates doll each time I do it.

[Wichita Wayne]

Win2k and XP are very stable operating systems. If you have lock-ups with XP then your computer may not be setup correctly, you may have a bad component or driver, or the computer does not have the horespower to handle XP. If your computer came with win98 then I would question its ability to handle XP. It may not have enough memory or speed to handle XP. You may also be missing drivers that are specific to XP. A driver is a small program that allows two computer components to communicate properly. For older computer components NT and XP drivers can be really hard to find, if they can be found. Also, getting them to work properly can be a trick. Laptops are particularly bad about this. Running Windows Update from the Start menu can sometimes solve the driver problem so I would try that first.

If you installed XP as a upgrade over the top of Win98 then that could be your problem. I never had much luck upgrading Win 95/98 to an NT/XP based operating system. The solution is to format the hard disk and install the NT/XP operating system from the distribution CD. The XP CD should have a program on it that will create four Boot/Setup disks that will do this for you. The setup program will ask you to insert your old 95/98 CD to check before installing the new operating system. When finished you should run the windows update program located on the Start meny and let it try to locate new drivers for your hardware. If you are lucky this will solve most of your driver problems. Then you have to install all your software fron scratch. Needless to say you need a good backup of all the files on the hard disk so that nothing is lost.

With regards to the card readers I have used them for many years with all operating systems from Win98 to XP. I have found that XP seems to be the most stable operating system with these items. However, if you system is not stable to begin with then you cannot expect the readers to work properly. Computer components that were designed for Windows 95/98 can have a lot of problems with modern USB devices. Win98 SE USB service was engineered to work well with a mouse, printer, speakers and keyboards. In my experience you were better off purchasing a PCI USB board and turn off the built-in USB services. I found that some card readers had to be completely dismounted if I wanted to change cards. It would not hot swap like a floppy disk or CD drive. You dismount the device by clicking on the icon that looks like a little PC Card with an arrow above it pointing to the left. It is located in the lower right box of loaded probrams. When I went to a laptop with XP, that had all the correct drivers installed, most of the problems I had with card readers were gone.

Your internal card reader is probably just a USB device that is plugged into a USB slot that is located somewhere inside your computer case. It looks like it is built-in device but in reality it is just like the external card readers that you had before, but now you cannot unplug it when you do not need it.

My advise would be to get your system running stable with XP before you attempt to use the card reader. You may need professional help to do this.

[eric]

Thanks Wayne,
As I said before, I go back to the good old days of DOS. I bought my first computer, an Hitachi Peach, (remember those), in 1982 and have been building, modifying and upgrading them ever since. The IBM was a giant leap backwards for me because the monitor and graphics on the Peach were much better. But we could all see the writing on the wall and got out of Peaches while they still had some value. We assumed that the name Peach was in response to the Apple. Look, that was a really advanced machine, I had 360K of RAM and two 5.25" floppy drives.

[eric]

Opps, sorry, my Peach supercomputer had 36K of RAM. Ah, those were the days.

[Wichita Wayne]

Ha, another old dude that remembers the good old days.

[eric]

Wayne,

Not another C64 owner?? But at least in those days we had to write our own programmes because there was nothing there. Win98 I could play with, but this XP has got me baffled.
As I said before, I read in another forum that XP did not handle readers well, and the only other person I know who has made the change had trouble with her reader.
Maybe it's something about readers. When using 98 another friend bought a reader and his machine wouldn't recognise it, but mine did. His machine recognised my reader so we took the easy way out and swapped readers.
Owning a computer keeps the grey matter in trim, if only it would do the same for the rest of me.

[Wichita Wayne]

If they made the things so that they were trouble free the electronics would probably cost too much. The most trouble free device that I have ever used is the PCMCIA reader that came with my microdrive. The other PCMCIA (PC Card Bus) devices that I have used also seem to work great, but you normally have to have a laptop to get the things to work. The device I use is called an Imation FlashGO, it uses USB 2.0 and it has worked great. It cost $80 though and comes with adapters for SmartMedia, SD/MMC cards, and memory sticks. I can highly recommend it for use with WinME, Win2K Pro, and Win XP. I have used the Zio, Microtech, and Lexar and had trouble with all of them.

[eric]

The trouble is Wayne, that down here in OZ most computer bits are sold on price. many of the name brands that seem to be available in the US of A are not available down here. Luckily I don't do this as a profession, just a money drain, so if I have to fiddle about a bit it isn't costing me money.
By the way, do you have Irish ancestry that makes you like real beer?
Eric

[frankgh]

Anyone remember the VIC-20? I think my mom bought it at Kmart! The first program I wrote was an addition program where it would display:
1
2
3
4
etc.
I think when I got home from school that day it was up to about but not much over 1,000,000.
Then I got the cassette tape drive!
Only the rich kids had C64's!

[Wichita Wayne]

On my mothers side I am a McDermot. That is about as Irish as you can get. The McDermot's go all the way back to Finn McCool I bet.

[eric]

Hey, we are really getting on a nostalgia kick here. I apologise for taking this thread somewhat off topic, but it's fun isn't it?
But do you remember what "real" computers were like back then. In about 1970 I wanted the x and y co-ordinates for a parabola, (I was making microwave dishes at the time). so I got a commercial computer company to do the legwork. The room, air-conditioned and with a sprung floor, was bigger than the house I live in now. I bet that any computer running Photoshop is much more powerful than that behemoth and would do the job in a fraction of the time.

[robinp]

A couple of tips for those having trouble with card readers or data transfer problems with XP -
Check to see if there is a USB patch for your motherboard chipset.
Apply XP Service Pack 1 (cures all manner of ills!).

Cheers, Robin

[Andre]

Originally posted by frankgh
Anyone remember the VIC-20? I think my mom bought it at Kmart! The first program I wrote was an addition program where it would display:
1
2
3
4
etc.
I think when I got home from school that day it was up to about but not much over 1,000,000.
Then I got the cassette tape drive!
Only the rich kids had C64's!

I still have my Vic-20!

[jknights]

XP SP2 should be available soon. Loads of fixes in that.!!

A problem with the drivers will cause this sort of symptoms that you are identifying.
I suggest that you go to the makers of your card readers and download athe latest drivers then reinstall the card reader software.

If you go to Control Panel, System, tab Hardware then Device Manager you will see the USB Controllers as individual devices listed when you click on the + associated with the USB Controllers.
I have 12 associated with my machine !!
If you however install the new dirvers via a Setup program the program will hopefully update the drivers correctly else you need to identify which drivers need updating. This is hit and miss unless you really know which USB device is which.


I am a Windows 2000 Pro fan and don't intend to touch XP at all. My next OS will be Longhorn which is the next version after XP but this is not due for release until end of 2004 or more likely 2005. This will be 64bit as well as 32bit.

This will be as big a jump as the move from Win98 to Windows 2000.

[eric]

The problem is that, in it's infinite wisdom, XP won't let me install the card reader drivers, it insists that it's own drivers are the best available.
It's still pretty erratic as to whether it will read the card or not. A reboot usually fixes it. Luckily I don't do this for a living, so it's just costing me time, not money.
I wouldn't have gone to XP either except that I want to upgrade to Photoshop CS and that only runs on XP.