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Dimension E521 - Media card drives disappear
When I open My Computer it lists drive letters for my media card drives but when I insert a CF camera card, or SD card the drives instantly vanish.
When I checked the BIOS there is a setting for diskette drive which is set to OFF. The factory default is supposed to be INTERNAL. When I set it to INTERNAL and reboot I get a black screen that says: Diskette drive SATA-0 not found. I go back into the BIOS settings and set Diskette drive to OFF and it boots fine. The Media Card Reader drives show up in My Computer again but disappear again if I insert a card.
I have 2 X 250 GB drives. The 2nd I recently partitioned for a dual-boot XP Media Center/Vista Home Premium system but this problem was occurring before I partitioned.
I've updated to the latest BIOS (1.1.11) with no difference. Any ideas? Cheers.
- Just reporting back on a happy ending. Dell tech support thought that it was an OS problem but re-installing XP didn't solve it. Dell sent me (very quickly) a replacement card reader and cable. I changed cables but the old card reader still didn't work. I replaced the drive with the new one and booted up. All the drivers loaded up and the new media card reader works fine.Thank you Dell.
PETER345
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Posted October 17th, 2007 18:00
There have been several problems here with the media card reader not working. When I had the problem in a 9200, I would pull the cable to the motherboard (power on) and put it back (power still on). Suddenly, Windows would recognize it just like I attached an external reader and it would work. If you try this be careful not to drop any metal or short anything out with a watch or a ring you are wearing. There are no high voltages exposed in the case (they are all inside the PSU) so you can't get electrocuted.
Dell sent me a new cable and that seemed to help somewhat. It hasn't failed for a long time and I've never quite figured out what the problem is/was. Rebooting, reinstalling drivers did not help at all.
Peter