USB download OK but not computer card reader -- please help

[Winston N]

I have a new FZ5 and a Sandisk Ultra II 512 MB SD card. I can download the images via the camera USB connection to my computer viewing the images in the supplied ArcSoft SD Viewer program. However, my computer SD card reader would not read the card, with the message that drive J is inaccessible and that the folders or files are corrupted and unreadable. The Arcsoft SD viewer would say that there is no supported memory card. This would seem to be a card reader driver issue. When I tried to install the USB driver from the Arcsoft CD, Windows would not let me continue, saying that the installed driver is suitable for all USB drives. The Operating system is XP Pro. How do I solve this problem of my computer card reader not recognising the Ultra II SD card? There is no problem with the supplied 16 MB Panasonic card.

[genece]

I am not sure what you are asking... XP needs no special driver to read from a Card reader or camera.

If you have the card reader plugged in and then insert the card , XP should ask what you want to do.. Tell it to open the folder to view the files or to use the wizard to transfer the files ....your choice

If it does not ask, Right click on the drive and click autoplay and it should ask the next time.

If I did not understand I am sorry.

[StanStan]

Gene is correct: XP doe not require a driver. The problem is to find out what drive letter the card reader is assigned by XP. If the card read is like mine a few drive letters are assigned.
I get 4 new letters with the card reader installed.

Goto Start>My computer with no reader installed. Look at the drive letters.

Install card reader.

Then go again to Start>My computer again and see what additional drives show up.

Then put a card in the reader and try to open each new drive letter one at a time till you find the drive that has the card in it. If a left click gives a "Please insert a disk into drive 'x' try another drive.

Right click that drive and click on Make Shortcut and place it on the desk top for ease of use. Than rename the shortcut to say "SD Reader" etc.

[Winston N]

My Windows Explorer has the drive letters clearly displayed:
Compact Flash (H:)
Memory Stick (I:)
MultiMedia (J:) -- this reads SD/MMC cards
SmartMedia (K:)

When I insert the card, another Explorer window opens, titled Drive J: showing the folders DCIM and MISC. When I click on DCIM, a message box pops up with the message:
"J:DCIM is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupt and unreadable".

I have used Auto play and nothing happens with a few viewers, including the ARCSOFT SD viewer.

However when a card is readable, such as the supplied Panasonic 16MB SD card, this window does not come up and the SD viewer can read it and display the photos.

Also, as I have posted in another post here, when the Ultra II card was formatted by a Panasonic non-FZ5 camera, the SD card reader could read the card. This is puzzling.

[genece]

It has been reported that some readers do not work with certain cards.
I would try another reader.
Also since my Explorer does not display the drives as yours does I wonder if you installed a special driver, which you should not have done.
XP has all the USB drivers it needs.

[StanStan]

I would try another card reader. I have a USB Lexar JumpDrive that takes any SD card: $14.98 which includes shipping from Amazon.com. Very small and I take it on trips.

Or: Try any local Picture Printing Kiosk to see if card can be read.

[StanStan]

Gene is probably right that an incompatible driver is installed on your computer. I wish I had thought of it.

To find out and correct try this:

Right click the SD Drive Icon in My Computer.
Click Properties
Click Hardware
Then select your SD Driver in the list IE turn it blue
Click properties
Click Driver
Click Roll Back Driver.

You may have to roll back the driver more than once!

The driver should now show: "Generic Storage Device USB Driver"

Do it for all four drivers.

Should have four "Generic Storage Device USB Driver" showing in list.

Trust this will solve the problem.

[Aside: Gene are you back from vacation?]

[photosmarty]

If your drivers were not correctly installed you wouldn't be able to use the 16mb card. Obvisouly the 16meg card works fine but the high speed one is not.

As I have mentioned already in a post higher up :rolleyes: my problem was the same and I had to download the photos directly from the camera via USB until I bought a new USB 2 card reader.

I see a trend here with older stlye 1.1 USB readers being incompatible with the higher speed SD cards :(

Try a new USB 2 reader.