Ricoh 5 in 1 memory card reader not showing drives

I have a Dell XPS M1710 laptop. I recently installed windows 7 home premium 64bit. I can't seem to get my built in Ricoh 5 in 1 memory card reader to work. I installed the recommended driver using the dell drivers on their website. None of the drives are appearing under my computer, and nothing happens when I insert a memory card. I have tried several 1 and 2gb cards. Both high speed and regular with no success. I went to folder options and unchecked the box to hide empty drives in my computer. I am unable to locate anything under device manager for the Ricoh card reader.

A - I want it to display the empty drives in my computer
B - I want it to read my darn memory cards

Any ideas, I'm starting to think the reader itself may be defective. Please help me diagnose and hopefully fix this problem. Thanks!

Computer came with Windows XP installed. So i'm out of luck?

Is it disabled in the BIOS?

With many OEM devices, the drivers are built-in to Windows 7 or made available by Windows Update. There's a very good chance that the device is fully compatible, even if no actual drivers exist for download.

I'm thinking that the device could be disabled, or it might need the drivers installed manually through Device Manager.

It is enabled in the bios. I can't manually try to install the driver because it is not listed anywhere under device manager.

The drives might still be hidden. If it's like my laptop...it only shows up when in use.

I had a similar problem with an add on 3.5" card reader from rocket fish for my desktop....worked well with vista. Then installed 7 and installed driver manually and everything was all dorked up. Then uninstalled driver rebooted and let windows pick it up and install generic driver and has worked well ever since. It too doesn't show up unless I use it.

adamchaput said:

It is enabled in the bios. I can't manually try to install the driver because it is not listed anywhere under device manager.

If it isn't showing up in Device Manager, even as unknown devices, then it isn't being recognized at all by the laptop. You could check online to see if there's a cable that may have come loose internally, or it is possible that the reader is dead.