Dante send me an email today describing a problem that he encountered in Windows Vista. He is using Windows Vista on two desktop computers and one notebook and none where able to recognize an SD card, fully working and compatible, if the card had a capacity of 1 Gigabyte or more.
The problem does not seem to be recognized by Microsoft currently and the Internet is full of places with users who report similar problems. SD Cards with a capacity of 1 Gigabyte are recognized without difficulty. There is no working fix yet for this problem, below is a short selection of forum posts that describe the problem.
Card Reader won’t read 2Gb SD card
Card Reader won’t read 2Gb SD card
SD Card Driver problems
Vista Cannot Read 2GB SD CARD
Vista does not recognize SD cards greater than 1 gig in size
I do not have my notebook with Windows Vista around currently and cannot test if I run into the same difficulties. Let me know if you run Windows Vista and have difficulties with SD Cards with a size greater than 1 Gigabyte.
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I am running Vista Business edition on my Laptop. I have both a SD card reader in-built into the laptop as well as using an external card reader. All my SD (Normal SD and Mini) cards are about 2GB and above. I don’t have such problems on any of my card readers. I have another 2 machines that are running the same config with no problems.
It could be an OEM driver issue rather than a Vista issue.
Wife has same problem with Vista Premium on an Acer Aspire. Has problems reading any cards, inc 2gb. Think it has been ok since SP1, not sure. Her fix was reinstall drivers just about every time she needed to use the reader… The other issue I noticed she has was audio squelching and not playing. Noticed there are heaps of people with that problem too but no fix… Luckily I run XP :P
Funny thing is, Vista will recognize a 2 gig SD card if it’s plugged into your PDA and synced through Mobile Sync. But the same Vista machine will ignore the same 2 gig SD card if plugged into a card reader.
one of my customers actually having the sd card 1gb when transferring using ’send to’and crush the whole desktop in Vista home basic. The microsoft did asked for the update but it was already patches and still experience same problem.
I have a Dell XPS Gen 2 notebook, which came with XP, but I have happily ran Vista since Beta 2. I have only an SD card reader and have used 2gb, 3gb, and now 4gb of readyboost, and i also have an 8gb sd that goes to my canon sd750 camera. i just swap the readyboost sd card with the 8gb camera one when i need to transfer pics.
sooo…. everything has worked perfect for me concerning this issue.
Ok, for those of you who has this problem: I’ve found the answer finally. I went out and bought a whole bunch of USB card readers (ranging from US$5 to US$50 each). I’ve found that the card reader who had paid Microsoft for their new and improved Vista SD driver, works with Vista. Those who remained using the generic SD config will NOT work with Windows Vista. Apparently, Microsoft have decided to set a whole new SD standard all on their own.
This is total BS. My 512Mb CD card is not recognised on my laptop. Everything else appears to work (I have had Vista for a week..)
I’m just gonna boot to Linux from USB key so I can send family pictures to some friends
However, M$ have removed a *LOT* of programming functions from Office 2007 (simple, everyday type *useful* code)
‘Fun’ Billy (and muppets) are in full effect…
Will add some info to the confusion.
Laptop running Vista Home Basic with external card readers (2). Sandisk 2GB card.
When using no. 1 card reader, HAMA – USB 2.0, card is shown. It’s also possible to format the card on 2 GB.
When using no. 2 card reader, chinese make, get the message the card has to be formatted. When trying to format only 1 GB is possible.
When cancelling the format a message formatting is not possible; check the card reader / drivers.
I have a Dell M1530 notebook with an integrated card reader. Under Vista I cannot use this internal reader (with either a 2GB or a 64MB(!)) card. However, when I connect an external card reader to a USB port, I can read the cards without any problem! So its either a strange Windows bug or its Dell’s fault…
It is the reader which makes the difference.
Sandisk MicroMate reads any size under Vista home without that stupid formatting issue.
My other “no name” multi readers read anything but SD cards under Vista as you know.
Funny that this same readers are working fine with XP.
Ok, so what’s the answer with the issue? Is there any way to use the SD cards with Vista?
Funny thing for me is that, until last night, I never had a problem with this, and I’ve had my laptop for almost a year.
Hi,
I’m having problems too, but they are different than everyone else’s. I have a month old HP dv9700t notebook computer running Vista Home Premium 64-bit, with a built-in multi-function card reader and I also have a USB Edge All-in-1 external card reader. I have two 2GB SD cards: a SanDisk Ultra and a Prospec (Calumet’s brand). Both are used in my digital camera. The internal card reader in the notebook reads both cards fine. It appears to be a Ricoh device. When I try to use the external USB Edge card reader, which works fine and is extremely fast on my Windows XP Pro notebook, the system sees the reader and the card, but it doesn’t work right. It takes many seconds for Auto-Play to come up, many more seconds before I can open the directories, and then Vista keeps rereading the card over and over when I scroll through directory entries. It can’t seem to obtain all of the data. It takes forever to show dates of the files. If I try to open files or copy them off the card it either hangs, or errors out. I’ve been unable to get a solution to this problem so far. Edge says they have a 64-bit Vista system that works fine with the reader I have. So it does seem that there is an issue with the driver configuration on some of these notebooks. I’m trying Microsoft support, but getting nowhere. Getting ready to try HP support. This is ticking me off because the external reader is so much faster than the internal readers. There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to use it. I am running Service Pack 1, but it was preinstalled by HP. I even tried reinstalling my system from the Recovery partition and that didn’t help.
I don’t have any 1GB cards to try in my external reader, to see if this is only a problem with 2GB or larger cards. They are probably cheap, maybe I should go get one and try it. This is very similar behavior to what I saw on my old notebook that can’t handle 2GB cards in the internal reader.
Lisa
I am having a similar problem. I have a dell inspiration 5303 and my 4gb scandisc sdhc card is not recognised in my computer, i went on to device managment as suggested on other sites and i can see the card there but whe i select properties it crashes!
Any Ideas?????
im having same problem i have 3 sd card sandisk and kingston, 2 and 4 gb
till a month agor all of them used to work well on my laptop toshiba
now none of them can be read, or detected when placed on my laptop be with a card reader or on its laptop slot
but all card works well on my PDA just cannot be read on computer
can any one help please
Well I have the same problem. My workaround was migrating to ubuntu. :P Running windows only on a virtual machine when needed. :P
The SD card problems are only in windows vista, windows xp works fine, so does fedora and ubuntu.
I have a 16Gb SD Card with the factory reader built into my Toshiba laptop…It seems as though when I plug it i and use it, at random times it seems to be causing my system to crash…Sometimes it just Locks Up…And sometimes I get the BSOD and a memory Dump Error…
Does anyone know if this is my problem as ever since I have used and installed the SD card the laptop has acted weird and had these problems…
Thanks,
Sorry I forgot to add that I have Vista too…
Thanks…
I have a Lexar 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo. It worked last Friday, then all of a sudden the Card reader wants to reformat the stick. Well the memory is for my PSP (Playstation Portable) and I really need to get on the card. I have a Toshiba A215 With Vista Home Premium.
Funny thing though it works fine on an Acer with Windows XP. Please let me know. I have tabbed this page.
Success…..I have vista and the internal card reader does not work for any sd card. I followed above advice and used my cheap external-usb card reader and it works fine. Now I have to figure out how to format the card properly when using a new blank one. I guess my phone should do that?
i had the same problem i have a 8 gb sd card. when i out it in to my vista 32 bit laptop the internal card reader works when i put it in to my vista 32 but desktop it does not work there both the same platform. Not sure what it is there is activity but just freezes and seems to not work then it upsets the exporer.
i had the same problem the fix is a program that auto plays everything that worked for me when i had the problem last time but now cant find where i downloaded it i think its to do with vista system
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=517257 helpful link
i found a program on download.com that worked for me but be careful its not windows verified
just search sd card drivers than list as date added
Card Reader TI Driver 2.0.0.6q worked for me
Card Reader TI Driver 2.0.0.6 didn’t work for me
i meant
Card Reader TI Driver 2.0.0.8 didn’t work for me
I am having a problem also getting Windows Vista to read the SD card. I have the business version, which my school gave me. I looked everywhere, even under computer to see if I could find a removable drive. All I saw was my disk drive. The SD card could not be found. After plugging in the card, the computer did not even seem to make an attempt to indicate that the card was being read.
This seem to have worked for me. I’m on Vista Ultimate 64 bit and was trying to use SanDisk 2GB SD card and it wasn’t working until I installed drivers from here: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=ob-70996-1
I was having the same problem, so I just went to the link provided by Ambuj and downloaded the driver and then re-started my machine and it read my 8GB card without any problem. Thanks for the link!