Advice needed about CF cards

[paul162brown]

I take a nice picture every now and then but stuggle with the technical side of things and am sure I will look silly asking this question :oops: , but....

I recently purchased a Sandisk Ultra 256 CF card for my D30 which works very well in the camera, but when I put it in my card reader, my PC will not recognise it??

Normally, the card reader light comes on and it automatically reads the pictures and the windows box comes up and lets me start the downloads etc. I have windows XP and my other normal CF card works fine. At the moment I have reverted to downloading pictures from within the camera by connecting the camera to the PC.

I know this card is slightly faster than my older one, but I thought a CF card is a CF card. Maybe I need to change my card reader?

Any help or advice to this novice PC question will be gratefully received.

Thanks

:D

[SWPhotoImaging]

Paul,

What kind of CF card reader are you using? Some of the those that ship with a media card will only work with that make of media card. I have had very good luck with the generic Belkin products, which read and write prety much any card, and do it very fast (USB2.0)

[Bilymac]

Paul,

I know that I have the same trouble with the Lexar card reader that was supplied with my Lexar CF's. If I try put other than a Lexar card in the reader, it won't read it.
Hope this helps.

Bill

[HJMinard]

I have a Sandisk USB 2.0 reader and Sandisk Ultra II cards. Unfortunately, I have to unplug and re-plug the USB cord every time I install a card - otherwise it won't read. Quite frustrating. I tried updating/reinstalling the card reader's driver software, but it didn't help.

[Jon]

Paul,

I know that I have the same trouble with the Lexar card reader that was supplied with my Lexar CF's. If I try put other than a Lexar card in the reader, it won't read it.
Hope this helps.

Bill

Lexar's USB-enabled CF cards use a proprietary technology and are the only cards that will work with the supplied Lexar USB reader. That's because the smarts are in the card, not the reader.


Unfortunately, I have to unplug and re-plug the USB cord every time I install a card - otherwise it won't read.

Have you used the "Safely remove hardware" icon in your System Tray (looks like a little green arrow over a PC Card) to eject the cards? And by the way, what OS are you using? Windows XP is the best at handling these situations, Win98 and WinMe are the least forgiving.

[dn7elson]

I have a Sandisk USB 2.0 reader and Sandisk Ultra II cards. Unfortunately, I have to unplug and re-plug the USB cord every time I install a card - otherwise it won't read. Quite frustrating. I tried updating/reinstalling the card reader's driver software, but it didn't help.

That's strange. I have the Sandisk USB 2.0 reader and my PC doesn't care when I insert or remove the CF and whether the card reader is connected or not when I do it. It's a Dell 4550 running XP and I use either of the front USB ports.

[paul162brown]

Looks like I may need to buy a Sandisk CF reader then? :(

[dn7elson]

Looks like I may need to buy a Sandisk CF reader then? :(

I can't imagine why the CF and CF reader would have to be the same brand to work (Lexar CF with recovery software and drive excepted).

I had the USB 1.x Sandisk CF reader that worked fine with both the Sandisk CF and Ultra II CFs. I got the USB 2.x CF reader, also Sandisk, for the same reason as the first...it was the cheapest :D .

You might want to check the website of your CF reader and see if there is a driver update that you could download. Otherwise, a new CF reader is only about $20, so it really doesn't warrant a lot of time to troubleshoot IMHO.

[paul162brown]

Thanks to all for your help.

:D :D

[HJMinard]

Jon wrote:
Have you used the "Safely remove hardware" icon in your System Tray (looks like a little green arrow over a PC Card) to eject the cards? And by the way, what OS are you using? Windows XP is the best at handling these situations, Win98 and WinMe are the least forgiving.

dn7elson wrote:
That's strange. I have the Sandisk USB 2.0 reader and my PC doesn't care when I insert or remove the CF and whether the card reader is connected or not when I do it. It's a Dell 4550 running XP and I use either of the front USB ports.

I recall trying that (eject card) previously - I don't think it worked/made a difference, but I'll give it another look. I'm using Win98 SE on a Dell 4100 w/Belkin aftermarked USB 2.0 PCI card.

[dn7elson]

I'm using Win98 SE on a Dell 4100 w/Belkin aftermarked USB 2.0 PCI card.

Win 98 SE did a much better job at handling USB than Win98, but still not nearly as good as XP. This might be the source of your recognition problem.