bad card, or bad card reader, or... ?

[zelda_pinwheel]

i just received my "all-in-one" card reader which i bought specifically to use for the smart media card in my ebookwise. i plugged it in to the computer, it was identified and installed correctly, and 4 virtual drives showed up in the file explorer (there are 4 different card slots).

i put the smartcard in the slot, and the led indicator came on which i assume means it recognized the card, BUT it doesn't appear in windows. i double-clicked on the drives in the file explorer (all 4 ; i didn't know which drive was the right slot) and each time it told me to "insert a disk in the drive".

i tried with the memory stick from my camera, and it appeared in explorer and i could access the files, no problem.

i have no other sm card to test, but logically the card works, because when i turned the ebookwise on without the card, all my books were gone from my library, which must mean that they are on the card, right ? and if the card were bad, i couldn't read the books. but so why can't the pc read the card, if the ebookwise can ?

the only thing i can think of is, perhaps this was stupid, the FIRST time i plugged the card reader in, it had the card in the slot already. however this did not seem to make a difference in the installation.

anyone have any ideas where the problem could be ? the card reader was cheap so it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work, but i'd much rather it did... i bought it just for this purpose.

thanks in advance for any advice...

[Ervserver]

Maybe the card needs to be formatted

[zelda_pinwheel]

hm. maybe, but how can i format it if the pc can't see it ? in the old days of disquettes, the pc could see an unformatted disquette, and propose to format it. but here the pc doesn't think there's anything in the reader at all. can i format it in the ebookwise ? but then i'll lose all the books i put on it, so i'd rather not...

anybody else with an sm card reader ? how did you do it ?

[Jadon]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

how can i format it if the pc can't see it?

How would you format it if the computer could see it?
Cards can be formatted in different ways, and there's no guarantee that the computer's way would be the way a digital camera would do it. I've read that SmartMedia can get corrupted and there are tools to check and fix them. I've fortunately never needed it, so never bought a card reader to handle the situation.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Jadon : good point... i still do not know why the pc cannot see the card but in case anyone else has this trouble Stephanos has explained to me in a different thread that i don't need to use the card reader to transfer books to my eb-1150 via usb :

Originally Posted by Stephanos

BTW, you don't need to fool with removing the card and using a card reader to load new books into the reader. First, download and install the USB driver from ETI. Then download the free Publisher software from ETI and use the Librarian software (even in free mode it allows you to send books to the reader) along with the USB cable that came with the EB-1150. If you need help figuring out how to do this, free free to ask.

so i will be trying this solution. since the card reader can read all memory cards i'm sure i will find a different use for it... very mysterious problem though. i'm still interested in the solution, in case anyone knows...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Jadon

How would you format it if the computer could see it?
Cards can be formatted in different ways, and there's no guarantee that the computer's way would be the way a digital camera would do it. I've read that SmartMedia can get corrupted and there are tools to check and fix them. I've fortunately never needed it, so never bought a card reader to handle the situation.

All expansion cards I've seen are formatted FAT16 or FAT32, depending on card size. (FAT16 up to 2GB, FAT32 for larger volumes.) FAT is a "lowest common denominator" file system that everything can read. I've almost never found it necessary to format a card.

Because the cards use the FAT file system, they are subject to the same problems FAT formatted disks are. The smallest unit of space that can be read from/written to in one operation is the cluster. It's possible for clusters to be marked as used in the FAT table, but not owned by any file. These are "lost clusters", and mightily configure the OS and your applications. The solution is to run CHKDSK, which finds lost clusters and allocates them to files with names like FILE000.CHK in a FOUND.000 directory. The found file fragments can then be examined and (most likely) deleted, restoring the file system to sanity.

Handheld devices that use cards often have a function to format cards in the device, but don't have a way to repair damaged file systems. This is the second reason I like having a USB card reader: I can plug a card into the reader and run CHKDSK on it to fix problems, and I've had several occasions to do so.

It's also possible to defragment a file system on a card, but there is no reason to actually do it. Because it's flash memory rather than a disk, you don't get increased seek time from fragmentation.
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Dennis