PCMIAwhatnot... Heeelp! :)

*Ratmagiclady* · 08-17-2009, 01:55 PM

OK. So, in the interests of making the old laptop (A Thinkpad a30 with a little bit of RAM ugrade to 512MB) with which I hang out all day many days, and frequently collapse in front of at the end of a day of actually making photos.... more amenable to participation in the world of online photography,

I have bought the following:

1) a cheap external HDD, which works fine,

2) as well as, from Hong Kong, a USB 2.0 card that goes in one of the PCMIA (or however you spell it) slots, apparently relying on a patch into one of the 1.0 slots for power, but also apparently working fine,

And

3) Mostly cause it was cheap and would get a cord off my table, an SD card reader to go in the other PCIMIA slot or whatever.

I'm not entirely sure #3 is functioning, and I'm not sure why. When I put it in the bay, or insert a card into *it,* my computer makes the chime I usually associate with plugging in a card reader or plugging a card into a card reader. But in any event, the reader does not appear under 'My Computer' as an external storage.

If I plug one of my old readers into the extra USB port on the USB 2.0 card, it comes up as an F: drive, with the HDD as E.

The new plug-in reader does not. Only makes the chime, as I said.

What I'm wondering is if I need to do something to assign that PCIMIA port to being the 'F' drive so I can see the files, or if I should just take this cheapie reader out of the equation.

I'm also having sporadic Internet connection, (over a built-in wireless card) just now, which may or may not be related.

Parallax · 08-18-2009, 06:20 AM

Try right clicking "my computer" and choose "manage" then when the next menu comes up go to disk management. When the graphic of your partitions comes up see if there is a partition that doesn't have a letter assigned. If there is, right click on it and choose "change drive letter and paths".

markdesmarais · 08-18-2009, 07:49 AM

I recently tried to use an old (and cheap) reader with an 8G card and found that it acts just like this. . . apparently it doesn't support the large cards. Maybe that is your issue?

*Ratmagiclady* · 08-18-2009, 09:29 AM

OK, thanks, guys.

Hrm. It's not appearing on the disk management, (I don't see a graphic, just a list) (Running XP Pro, here, if that matters)

...The cards I've been trying are only 2GB, but I have a smaller one or two around. It won't help me much if the disk size is the problem, but it'll be good to know. I don't have any SDHC cards, at least not yet, but this didn't promise to work with those, anyway.

I can always plug in a USB card reader to make this work, anyway, it's just a little less tidy and means I'll need to use a hub if I want to plug anything else USB in.

Another little question: the cord that came with my external hard drive has a cord going from the little connector to the USB plug, and out of this male USB plug comes an (extra?) male USB plug on a thinner cord. What's that intended to be for?

foxglove · 08-18-2009, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by Ratmagiclady

Another little question: the cord that came with my external hard drive has a cord going from the little connector to the USB plug, and out of this male USB plug comes an (extra?) male USB plug on a thinner cord. What's that intended to be for?

If it's like the drive I have, it's intended to provide some extra juice should the drive not function using a single USB port. I've never needed mine.

*SOldBear* · 08-18-2009, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by Ratmagiclady

... the PCMIA (or however you spell it) slots
...the other PCIMIA slot or whatever.

I can't help you with any other stuff, but I can help with this:

It's PCMCIA: Photographers Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

*Ratmagiclady* · 08-18-2009, 06:10 PM

Thanks, Foxglove.

The card reader doesn't seem to be reading a smaller card (a 512meg one) that I dug up, so it seems that somehow it's just not getting recognized. Still makes the cheerful little bongey sound that means something's happening, but maybe the computer can't find it.

I'm guessing either the reader is broken, incompatible, or I just haven't found how to get it recognized. (I'm fairly certain this cardslot works: I had a wireless card in there until the computer's internal one mysteriously started working a year or two ago)

*Ratmagiclady* · 08-18-2009, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by SOldBear

I can't help you with any other stuff, but I can help with this:

It's PCMCIA: Photographers Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

Haha.

Overall, it's a win, though. With the improvements that do work, I now have USB 2.0 and am no longer on my last couple of gigs of storage. I think my machine still needs a good degunking, there must be a ton of useless random code and crap on this drive by now, but I'm hoping I can get things cleared up enough to at least do some elementary post. (Well, a little better than the stuff that came with my little Lumix bridge camera: not fancy, but it runs on this machine. )