New desktop with card reader

Hannabeader,

Are you expecting a popup informing you that "new hardware has been detected" or a popup asking what you want to do with the contents of the card?

If the former, that won't happen with the kind of reader used on a 435T/9000. Each of the slots are permanently assigned a drive letter.

If the latter, that means that AutoPlay has been disabled. You can turn it on and/or modify its behaviour in Control Panel.

Personally, I hate pop-ups so I turned AutoPlay off.

Masi_GC

This is a known issue.  I spent over an hour on the phone with Dell yesterday about this, I'm having the same problem.  My card reader worked fine for the first two weeks I owned the computer (Dell studio xps 435t/9000 Windows 7 64 Bit), I would put in a SD card and it would download my photos for me, showed up in explorer, etc.  Then I plugged in a Western Digital external hard drive into one of the front USB slots one day and it didn't seem to like that.  The drive worked fine, but after that I started getting a message every time I would restart or the computer would wake up with a USB error, saying it couldn't find the USB device.  Coincident with that the media reader disappeared and stopped working.  Windows couldn't find a driver for the device, I disabled it, enabled it, uninstalled it, etc., etc. nothing worked.  The Dell guy was trying to find a chipset to install to fix the problem, but that didn't work either.  I have been unable to find the specific driver for the device, as was the Dell guy.  Final solution was to reinstall Windows 7, which I just did and the message still came back!  I think it kept some of my old files when I reinstalled, so this time I'm going to format the hard drive and do a totally fresh install, but even if that works I have no confidence that the error won't randomly reappear in a few weeks as I have read a number of people online are having this exact same problem with the media card reader on this system.  The Dell guy said that if the fresh OS install doesn't fix it they'll send me a new reader, but I'm sure that's not the problem, it's clearly some sort of software compatibility issue as far as I'm concerned.  I'll post again if I have any success.

Hannabeader:  What you said is not the problem, it has nothing to do with autoplay.

I have the same problem and same experience.  I worked with Dell on the phone twice for about 4 hours total with nothing to show for it.  They tried every driver they could find but no help.  A Dell technician came by today with a new reader but the same problem.  The USB works but no cards are read and it shows as an "unknown device".  My theory is that it worked prior to Windows 7 but has not worked since updating Vista to Windows  7(6 bit).    In any event, there appears to be no help and Dell seems unable to decide what driver to use.

AnClar, On your system do you have the "Show All Folders" box in the Navigation Pane section of the General tab in Folder Options ticked - on my XPS420 I've found I have to have this ticked in order to see the Media Card Reader (I know its a different piece of hardware from a different vendor) drives in Explorer. I can make them come and go by ticking and unticking this box.

Bernard

Arrrgh!  Never mind...now I'm in the same boat as everyone else.  The reader shows as an unknown device, and if I manually try to update the driver, it shows the Realtek 5150 Card Reader, but with error 10 "This device cannot start".  This is after a full system restore off the Dell recovery partition.  Maye the h/w is just defective.  Off to tech support hell.  I'll update if anything changes.

UPDATE

I just got off the phone with Dell tech support.  They wanted me to check the cable connections to the card reader.  Unfortunately, it's tucked in above the HDD bay and I can't reach the cables to see if they are seated OK.  Now it gets odder.....when I reassembled my computer and restarted it, the driver for the card reader installed OK.  The ONLY thing I may have done differently is to connect the keyboard and mouse to different USB ports than I had them in before.  Now I'm back to where I was originally.  That is, I have no marked bad drivers or devices in device manager.  The only drives that show up in Device Manager and My Computer are the HDD array and the two DVD drives.  However, when I put an SD card in the reader, it reads normally, and the drive does show up, both in device manager and My Computer.  I can use it normally.  When I eject the card, the drive disappears from both device manager and My Computer.  Personally, I'm happy with that...I mean the reader works.  Dell, however, wants to put a new card reader in the machine.  Fine by me, but I don't think it'll change a thing.  My guess is that either this is normal behavior for this setup, or else there is some really subtle, flaky problem in the USB h/w/driver setup.  In any event, I'll update again after they change the card reader out.  I'm going to stand over the tech's shoulder to make certain he puts eveything back together correctly, though and doesn't screw anything else up in the process.

AnClar,

I very much doubt you have a hardware problem with the Card Reader - a lot of people have had various card readers replaced by Dell to no effect. I have a spare one sitting beside me which they didn't want back as I type this - replacing the card reader may or may not change anything, but it will not resolve the problem permanently. Earlier I asked if you had checked some settings in Explorer but I notice you didn't post a reply - I think its worth your while just checking my earlier suggestion and at least letting us know whether you have these boxes ticked in the Navigation Pane section.

Bernard  

AnClar, Earlier I asked if you had checked some settings in Explorer but I notice you didn't post a reply - I think its worth your while just checking my earlier suggestion and at least letting us know whether you have these boxes ticked in the Navigation Pane section. Bernard

Sorry...I left that out.  But I did try what you suggested.  I did not have the "show all folders" option ticked in Folder Options.  Checking it and unchecking had absolutely no effect.  In either case, the drives did not show up in either Device Manager or My Computer.

FURTHER UPDATE

I agree fully that this is a driver/USB timing/Win 7 issue.  I've tried different versions of the Realtek driver, both the Dell Vista x64 version, the one on the Realtek site, and the Dell Win 7 64bit version.  I also tried the Win 7 generic USB Mass Storage driver.  All give slightly different results.  By the way, Im running Win 7 64bit.  With the Generic Win 7 driver, and the driver from the Realtek site, there is a successful driver install, then the driver AND the drives show up in Device Manager.  WIth the generic Win 7 driver none of the drives show up in My Computer, even though they show in Device Manager.  With the driver from the Realtek site, ONE of the drives shows up in My Computer, but it shows up as a hard drive with drive letter Y: .  With the Dell Vista x64 driver, the driver installs successfully, and the drives show up in device manager.  None of the drives shows up in My Computer.  With the Dell Win 7 64-bit driver, the driver installs successfully but none of the drives shows up in device manager.  However, if I put media in any of the card slots, the drive works as normal, and shows up in device manager and My Computer.  As soon as I eject the media from the card slot, the drive disappears from device manager and My Computer.  What I'm going to try now is to switch the USB cables for my Keyboard, Mouse, Western Digital external USB drive, and my iPhone to see what, if anything changes.  Will update.

FINAL UPDATE (FOR NOW)

OK, after trying the USB cables in various permutations, some of them are just slower to boot, but none of them makes any difference to the state of the card reader driver installation.  So I'm done for now.  I can only hope Dell gets an updated driver from Realtek....one that WORKS the way it's supposed to.  But I'm not going to hold my breath.  As long as the reader works OK, I'm not going to worry about the drives not showing up in device manager or My Computer, and I'm not going to change out the card reader.  It, in all probability, ain't the h/w.

I got  the same problem was on the phone with tech service for over a hour. They wanted to restore the whole desktop. It a know issue with them but i fix it for now try this

Go to Computer then Organize, open Folder and search options and open the View Tab. Scroll down to Show hidden files, folders and drives and check it if it is not then press Apply and OK. If your media devices do not show up after that shut down Windows and restarting.  Then  unplug the power to the Tower then open it and pop the CMOS battery on the Motherboard and then simply reinsert it after 30 seconds, replace power to the Tower and restart the PC and your devices should be there after you get in.

I have an similar issue and am running Vista Premium Home edition (Inspiron laptop).  I was having issues with a wireless mouse and suddenly the Realtek card reader was no longer there.  Also, the USB has been popping up errors for an unknown device (the card reader).  Tonight It finally recognized the it again.  The problem is enough of an issue that it has started crashing the system.

Originally I thought I had a USB bus hardware fault, but given the issues other are having I'm woundering if a Windows update is no longer playing nice with the Realtek drivers...

I've had the disappearing and reappearing card reader issue as well, and I think the problem is one of build quality. I jumped through the same hoops as everyone here with drivers, but what finally stabilized my card reader was removing the side, front, and top panels (instructions are on the Dell site) and reseating the cable from the card reader. It's a ridiculously tight squeeze in the front of the chassis, and I don't believe the cable is of adequate length. I'm no engineer, but I suspect the pins on the port and cable break contact during use as memory cards are popped in and out of the reader's slots. There is barely enough cable to make the connection. My system is very stable otherwise, and I need it to stay that way for my video production business. I have more important things to do than goof around with this. I'll try to reconnect the card reader cable one more time. After that, it's $20 on an external USB card reader, and I'll be done with it.

Shame on you, Dell!