Windows 7: External Hard Drive

For some unknown reason, one of the card readers Drive "F" on my computer seems to have switched itself off. Sometimes it works and others it will not. It has happened before and I contacted Dell who were able to give me instructions as how to sort it out. I have contacted them again but they are now asking for a large payment to provide support, much more than purchasing a brand new extrnal USB plug in card reader.

Can anyhone help please??

RonBin79

Title says hard drive but your talking about a card reader in your post. Is the device in question 1. internal or external 2. does it function properly.

Basshfisher,

My apologies, I should hae said internal drive, it is my card reader that is playing up.
When it decides to work, it functions properly and works well. I have just tried two copact flash cards a relatively new 4GB and an older 8GB. The new 4gb works fine but when I put the 8gb in the slot nothing happens??

RonBin79

Let's try uninstalling the driver from device manager and then rebooting and letting windows install it's generic driver. Then check.

Also, to verify older 8gb card, try using it in a different PC...a friends, at a store and verify that the 8gb device is good and working properly.

OK, that's fine with me, how do I uninstall my internal card readers though please??

Sorry, but I am not a computer buff only capable of minor things but can work to a set of instructions??

RonBin79(now 80!)

click start orb, right click computer tab, click properties, then on the top left side click device manager. Then scroll through until you find your card reader and right click it, then click uninstall and then reboot..

OK, I have found what you see in the screen shot via my control panel. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium. The Compact Flash drive appears to be the top ne but do I have to uninstall the whole lot or just that one please??

RonBin79

All the generic drives...DO NOT UNINSTALL THE "ST31000......that's your hard drive with your OS and everything else.

So I uninstall all the Generic Storage Device USB items??

RonBin79

All of them that say generic....