Media card readers

Once again Windows 7 has raised my stress levels beyond imagaantation. Three hours into this problem now, and all I hit is brick walls.

I am DESPERATELY trying re retreive some photos off my camera's SD card. The card is perfect.

I have
- an internal card reader on my Dell 9200
- an internal card reader in my Dell monitor
- a Lexar USB2.0 external card reader

There is no way on earth they are all defectiive.

I have multiple SD cards - There is no way on earth they are all defective.

My computer shows my a whack of Removable drive. Nothing works.

To compound everthing, as if its not frustrating enough, I have no way to tell which drive is for what.

The external drive reports the device is Ready for Use

When I randomely select some of the drives I get the progress bar going on the Computer windows. It goes right across, and then does nothing.

When I randomly select other drive, it asks for the media, but ask as if its not there.

I cannot seem to be able to remove all the portable/removable drives from device manager, I had hoped to be able to do this so that Windwos 7 could redetect them... but alas I cannot.

In Device Manager even I go thru each tab, I get some cluse as to what some of the drives are for. I tried to rename the drives accordingly, but Win 7 will not let me.

I am all out of ideas.

Total Windows frusrtration, yet again.

Ignnoring external USB for the moment (ie when nothing connected), my issue is that I cannot get the INTERNAL card reader to work.

I can see all the drives in Windowa explorer, Device Manager and Manage Computer. But all that happens when it tries to read any memory card, is the green bar.

I unplugged all the USB devices. Even the keyboard and the mouse! There is nothing more to remove.

I even updated firmware for teh reader

Under windows 7, I

- cannot get the internal card reader to work (only get the never ending green bar in explorer)
- same with external usb reader on my monitor
- same with external udb card reader

All chips and external readers work fine on all my XP computers and other monitors

Windows 7 sticks it to me once again.

I would not be surprised at all if the fix is something as outrageous as a new fan contoroller, power supply, motherboard, 25 reinstalls of Windows 7, or whatever. Clearly I am not going to go that route. I think Microsoft might want to consder hiring some 14 years olds next, as thr twelve year olds aren't cutting it.

PooMan UK said:

This won't fix the problem of figuring which drive letter belongs to what but this might help.
Do you have the cable to connect your camera to the PC?
If so insert the sd card into the camera and then connect the camera to the pc. If the autoplay doesn't open, then browse with windows explorer and you should get an icon image of a camera or a new drive letter. Then there should be a folder of DCIM which should contain your photos ... hope this helps

Thanks for the post. yes, I can get the photos that way, but my camera has other battery draining issues using the cable (!!!) ... so I'm am trying to get the Win7 computer to read the card directly.

Way too much troubleshoot effort here to read a media card.

I think the issue is newer media vs older hardware.

The main media card I have is a 16GB SDHC card. I suspect its as simple as some readers have issues with the capacity

After rebooting with a fimrware upgrade, the internal reader now recognizes the SDHC card... but the external readers (Dell 2407monitor, and Lexar USB 2.0) do not, and I suspect never will.