mobo or XP Pro? For some reason Mitsumi 7-1 card reader not identified

[Mickerry]

Either it's XP Pro or the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum that will not find the card reader in my my mitsumi FA402-A internal combo FDD/card reader. I should say it does so erratically ... rarely the reader will show up on My Computer as two additional drives, but usually XP Pro just ignores the reader (or perhaps it is the "unidentified usb device", i'm not sure). I've deleted the unidentified device but New Hardware replaces it as such and does not find the card reader. I've deleted the USB root hubs but XP Pro finds them and my card reader is not among them. The cables are all tight. Any ideas, tricks or patches that you know of?

if so, a million thanks. I've got a lot of pix on a San Disk card and no easy way to read/see them ...

Mikl
The voices in your head aren't real, but they have some really good ideas!

 

[garebo]

I can suggest that you go to the card readers mfgrs website and check out their FAQ section. You cant be the only person to have this problem.
I happen to have one but its not mitsumi and when i plug it in i get about 6 drives listed, one for each card slot.
You dont have all your drive letters used up do you?
Also, make sure you plug the reader directly to usb port and not from a usb hub, that might help you out.


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[Mickerry]

thanks garebo -
i didn't find an FAQ on mitsumi's site, i'll look again - i agree, i cannot be the only one having this problem. i did contact "customer service" but it's been maybe 10 days and no word.
i MIGHT be connected to a USB hub, i don't know, how do i tell? I know what the port looks like, but not the hub. Probably elementary, but there you go ...
I'm tempted to just replace it, but i think that as we both said i can't be the only one having this problem.
Thx for your thoughts and time .
Mikl

The voices in your head aren't real, but they have some really good ideas!

 

[garebo]

A hub is a piece of hardware you buy that allows you to plug 2 and usually 4 usb devices together and the ub plugs into only one usb connector at the pc. Sometimes with underpowered hubs you can run into problems with too many items on one line. Some hubs have their own power and others have no power, depend on the pc.
If you have it directed plugged into your pc then the hub is not an issue, just trying to cover all possible issues.

Question you didnt answer:
You dont have all your drive letters used up do you?
thats a crazy question but i figured you would tell me what number is your last used number. In computer management you can change the drive letters back and forth at will. You might try changing, say, your cdrom or burner to, say, q and\or r. It could be that your card reader likes to start at a certain letter. You can never know, these things are all weird, thats why tek-tips is here. To be honest, this suggestion is not really a great one, but it might work, who knows! Stranger things have happened, and if no go, you can change the burner or drive back to what it was before. Just dont change your c drive to another letter or you will have bigger problems, lol, since windows will be looking for c to boot up!



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[Mickerry]

i appreciate your time, thought and comments. the highest drive right now is D: , the CD burner. The card reader has registered at times and was listed, it added drives E: and F: . I just don't see why changing the drive designations would be helpful - the silly machine has read the drives correctly before with the current set up of drives. It has worked before - any guess as to whether it's a mobo issue or a WinXP Pro issue? (PS: The mobo BIOS is up to date, MIS allows for automatic update notification).

 

[garebo]

As far as changing drive letters, I dont really think it would matter, was just a thought.

I am now leaning toward win xp as the culprit, but just a guess. The reason i say that is because it does work sometimes. The reader i have lists something like 5 drive letters when plugged in.

It could be that it would work better plugged straight in as opposed to plugged into a hub. And i dont think you answered my question about wether you are on a hub or not.

Also, i wonder if you have sp1 and sp2 installed? I am thinking that perhaps sp2, if installed, could be the problem?
If you have sp2 installed, was it added on, not slipstreamed? And when? Could that correspond to when the reader stopped working?
I'm not saying that sp2, if you indeed have it installed, is the culprit, i'm saying it may be possible. There is a lot of hardware out there that wont work if sp2 is installed, updated drivers are needed. I just dont know if your reader is one of them or not.
If you plug your reader in do you get any changes in device manager?



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[Mickerry]

sorry for my incompleteness, garebo, in your efforts to be helpful.
i am not plugged into a hub, but directly. i am running XP Pro SP2 fully updated - the disk is an SP2 disk. So on the times when it DID work, it was with SP2 installed.

Device manager does not change when i unplug the reader, nor when i plug it back in. Nor when i dump/delete the USB connections and let Windows re-find them, and then add the device back in. Nor are there any Device Mgr exclamations or errors.

hope that's responsive.
thx, my friend, for your thoughts - keep em coming, if you have anymore ...
Mikl

 

[garebo]

Now i am at a loss. Unless there is some change that could be made in your bios. There are times when our bios gets changed without or knowledge or approval, least i know its happened to me and others.
So maybe have a good look at your bios and check the manual for a possible setting of some sort.
After that, i am out of possibilities, save for a repair of win xp or a new install of same.
Sorry about that. Will keep thinking, though.


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[Mickerry]

i don't see anything in the bios that would appear to help.
i have re-contacted mitsumi, maybe i'll hear back from them. (there is some kind of firmware patch on their site, but it doesn't seem to load into my machine.)
how would i do a repair of WinXP Pro? is it the Run sfc /repair or something? If so, i have already done the sfc step, unfortunately with no change ...

 

[garebo]

No, its not that, you simply put the win xp install cd in your cdrom and set your bios to boot from cdrom and you will get a prompt if you want to repair your existing win xp installation. Win 98se did the same thing, installed over itself and win xp will do that as well, provided you have win xp and not a recovery cd with win xp on it.

About the firmware patch, what did it say it was for and what systems or os's is it for?
If it is indeed for your setup then is there a setup file that you click on to install the firmware? If not you may have to check each file by right-clicking and one of them, when you right click on it, it will have the "install" command on it. Not sure if thats the case for this one or not, just trying to cover all angles.

Bear in mind also that some of these peripherals simply wont run on some pc's. Some all in one card readers are bad for that. I have a usb thumb drive that i simply cannot get to work on any of the 5 pcs i have. I dont know if its broken or what the problem is, just wont work. I have 4 other usb thumb drives and they all work fine on all my pcs, and i use them every day, so go figure.

You have mentioned that there is an error message in your device mgr. That is where the problem is for sure, just not sure how to fix it. Have you gone to the "unidentified device" and try re-installing from there?
That might do the job for you.

What drivers came with your mitsumi card reader?
Maybe you can give us the make and model?







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[Mickerry]

no drivers came with the mitsumi FA404-M 7-1 card reader/FDD. XP recognized the extra drives for a time, first it didn't, then it did (magic! <LOL>), then it wouldn't and hasn't for a long time now.
There is no error message or yellow flag, simply that the USB port has a description as an 'unidentified device'. i have deleted this and XP keeps finding it as an unidentified device. i have tried 'update drivers' with no results.

On the mitsumi site, it's not clear what the patch is for but it appears to be something to do with an issue like this, problems identifying the drives. and it looks like it should be good for XP. it's supposed to be self-extracting and installing - i'll have another look at it on the site. can't say much for mitsumi's support.

hope i answered your Q's this time <smile>.
thanks, mikl

 

[garebo]

Maybe you can give us the make and model and website?
I would try again to install the patch. YOu can always do a system restore if there is a problem.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[Mickerry]

speaking of system restore -- my card reader registered as drives at least once. could i go back with either system restore or backup to try to find a point where they were working? which would i use - restore or backup? I am not clear on which one stores how mych data. does one or the other work like imaging, where (for example) all my current email etc would be gone? i don't want to do that. i think that's backup, isn't it? what does "system restore" restore? would it leave my email alone and restore system settings? and would that be a possible way to go back and try to find the time when the system registered my card reader drives?
sorry for the naivete and confusion on my part - i was in Win98 until this past May and am still pretty new to XP. (i should probably just go buy a book! <smile, but true>)

 

[Mickerry]

any other help with this issue? this may be an odd take on it, but are there any registry fixes or changes that anyone knows of that could help?

 

[garebo]

You mentioned a patch just above here. Why not give that a try?
I took a few minutes to read this all over again. Can you tell us if you have done all the suggestions given?
And have there been any changes at all since you posted?
Still shows unidentified device in dev mgr?
Can you try it in another persons pc?


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[Mickerry]

i don't seem to be able to get the patch to work [:<(
It's supposed to flash and it just spins and spins in the floppy drive.

no changes at all since i've posted. i believe i've done all the suggestions given.
maybe i can try it in someone else's machine, i'll look into it.
Mitsumi gets no points for customer support, i sent them email on their form to customer support twice and heard nothing back.

i thought there might be registry settings that could be changed, i'd read about that in another thread on another site for a different card reader

thx for re-reading and checking in
Mikl

 

[garebo]

any chance that you could maybe right click on that patch, see if there is an install command on the right click menu?


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[Mickerry]

i'll go back to the Mitsumi site and grab it and try it again. there are actually two software downloads, there's a driver and then there's a patch that hints at being what i need, but as i say i cannot get it to run. it's a flash fix, and when i download it to a floppy and boot the floppy, the floppy just runs and runs without stopping and without loading the patch. trying to just run the floppy when the computer is running has the same result - i have to pop the floppy out to get it to stop whirring endlessly.

 

[Mickerry]

by the way, is it possible that either restore or backup might have a revert point to when the dang thing registered? would i lose email etc by going that route?

 

[firewolfrl]

here is an idea. card readers are cheap nowdays. go buy a new cheap card reader. it may work way better than the one you are trying to use. I did that and I am happy I did. you should be able to get one for as cheap as $14.00 in my town that is the equivalent of three Mochas.....lol