It has been a while since I used the SD card reader, but I think the last time was Dec 4, 2009, after I recently did a Dell System Restore (factory restore) on my computer (Nov 23, 2009). This is the first time I have experienced this difficulty, and I have used the crad reader many times over the past years. SD Cards are not being recognized insert a card - Nothing happens. I hope there is Tech Guru listening to give me a lead about how to verify that my SD card reader hardware is working, and how to have it recognized (again) as a device.ġ. In several ways the Ricoh MMC Host Controller/Driver do not seem to be present in the system. I have reinstalled the latest Dell/Ricoh drivers, with no effect. The card reader works fine for Memory Sticks (MS card). There is no response at all to inserting an SD card. I can't read SD cards on my Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 running Windows XP SP3.

Now I just hope the card reader hangs together and stays off my radar. I needed strong reading glasses, a magnifying glass, a flashlight, and a toothpick - very high tech! :emotion-15: Investigating and repairing it was like a watchmaker working on a ship in a bottle at the bottom of a well - tiny, dark, and hard to reach. I was ready to abandon the card reader writing it off due to 'old age'. Solving this was a bit of luck, due to the limited extent of the damage, and location near the mouth of the card reader. Anyway, The bent pin must have touched its neighbour and caused enough trouble to disable the SD/MMC card reader functions. The next row in is for SD/MMC cards, and farthest in is the row of pins for the 'long' MSPro cards. As far as I can tell, the outside row of fingers is for xD-Picture cards (about twice as many pins, and a 'short' card). My guess is that the contact finger was bent unintentionally, when an SD card got a little 'stuck' in the reader. There probably never was a software/driver problem. After doing this the Ricoh MMC Host Controller appeared properly in Device Manager, and I could read and write to one of my SDHC cards. Fortunately I was able to re-bend it slightly to the side.

I noticed that one of the contact fingers (aka pins) in the outside row of the card reader was somewhat bent and not spaced/aligned the same as the others. I am still looking for low level card reader diagnostic software. Well, I may have resolved this problem by a small hardware tweak! The card reader hardware is delicate, so treat it gently.

Xd picture card reader near me