I have a fairly old Acer laptop, Aspire E5-573.

I've been running win10 since I got it, 2 years ago, with no problem.

The SD card reader used to work, I'm 99.9999% positive, but now it
doesn't.

Doesn't work with 2 different SD cards, file managers don't even know
the reader is there. USB-Safely-Remove, a 3rd party program, knows its
there but says the card is ready for safe removal. I'm sure that's
because it's never been connected to Windows.

How do I make it work? Do I need software? Thank you.

On 8/11/2023 10:58 PM, micky wrote:
> I have a fairly old Acer laptop, Aspire E5-573.
>
> I've been running win10 since I got it, 2 years ago, with no problem.
>
> The SD card reader used to work, I'm 99.9999% positive, but now it
> doesn't.
>
> Doesn't work with 2 different SD cards, file managers don't even know
> the reader is there. USB-Safely-Remove, a 3rd party program, knows its
> there but says the card is ready for safe removal. I'm sure that's
> because it's never been connected to Windows.
>
> How do I make it work? Do I need software? Thank you.
>

0bda:0159 USB Mass Storage Device

But it only appears in Device Manager, when an SD is inserted into the slot.
RTS5159 card reader. Made by Realtek in my case. That's my laptop.

If it describes its class as USB Mass Storage, the Mass Storage class
driver should run it, without additional software. It should work as
easy as a USB flash drive.

This behavior is not helpful (staying hidden if no media is plugged in),
because it makes the device harder to debug.

In any case, look in the Device Manager, USB section, then look for "Mass Storage"
while an SD is plugged in.

Mine doesn't have a LED, so there's no way to know what is going on.

If you're a rich guy, you can get yourself a USB pen-drive like device,
which has an SD slot on the side. That can be used to verify the SD is good.
There are also a few bigger card readers, with a USB cord on the end
of them, for the same purpose.

The very newest devices, are USB3, and can handle the media that
runs at 95MB/sec. That's the media that is used in some of the fancy
cameras. There may be faster SD standards than that, but I would guess
the 95MB/sec flavor is more common. There's some video standard,
where the camera shoots video at 50MB/sec or so. For comparison,
my camera might shoot video at 3MB/sec (snoozer).

Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 12 Aug 2023 00:09:46 -0400, Paul
<nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

>On 8/11/2023 10:58 PM, micky wrote:
>> I have a fairly old Acer laptop, Aspire E5-573.
>>
>> I've been running win10 since I got it, 2 years ago, with no problem.
>>
>> The SD card reader used to work, I'm 99.9999% positive, but now it
>> doesn't.
>>
>> Doesn't work with 2 different SD cards, file managers don't even know
>> the reader is there. USB-Safely-Remove, a 3rd party program, knows its
>> there but says the card is ready for safe removal. I'm sure that's
>> because it's never been connected to Windows.
>>
>> How do I make it work? Do I need software? Thank you.
>>
>
>0bda:0159 USB Mass Storage Device
>
>But it only appears in Device Manager, when an SD is inserted into the slot.
>RTS5159 card reader. Made by Realtek in my case.

I had looked at Device Manager, carefullly I thought, but I missed this
line.

It said my card reader is disabled.

> That's my laptop.
>
>If it describes its class as USB Mass Storage, the Mass Storage class
>driver should run it, without additional software. It should work as
>easy as a USB flash drive.

Under Properties, it said if I wanted to enable it, I should click
Enable.

So I did, and now it says it's enabled.

And when I pushed the SD card in, it made noises, dsplayed a little box,
and it shows up on File Manager.

Thanks a lot. (that was pretty easy.)

I may have gremlins that disabled it when I wasn't looking.

>This behavior is not helpful (staying hidden if no media is plugged in),
>because it makes the device harder to debug.
>
>In any case, look in the Device Manager, USB section, then look for "Mass Storage"
>while an SD is plugged in.
>
>Mine doesn't have a LED, so there's no way to know what is going on.
>
>If you're a rich guy, you can get yourself a USB pen-drive like device,
>which has an SD slot on the side. That can be used to verify the SD is good.
>There are also a few bigger card readers, with a USB cord on the end
>of them, for the same purpose.
>
>The very newest devices, are USB3, and can handle the media that
>runs at 95MB/sec. That's the media that is used in some of the fancy
>cameras. There may be faster SD standards than that, but I would guess
>the 95MB/sec flavor is more common. There's some video standard,
>where the camera shoots video at 50MB/sec or so. For comparison,
>my camera might shoot video at 3MB/sec (snoozer).
>
> Paul
>

micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

> I have a fairly old Acer laptop, Aspire E5-573.
>
> I've been running win10 since I got it, 2 years ago, with no problem.
>
> The SD card reader used to work, I'm 99.9999% positive, but now it
> doesn't.
>
> Doesn't work with 2 different SD cards, file managers don't even know
> the reader is there. USB-Safely-Remove, a 3rd party program, knows its
> there but says the card is ready for safe removal. I'm sure that's
> because it's never been connected to Windows.
>
> How do I make it work? Do I need software? Thank you.

Is the card fully seated? Use a light and magnifier to check inside the
slot to check for debris. Also check if any of the pins are bent, or
not pressing fully down when the card is inserted.

https://b2600043.smushcdn.com/2600043/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Card-Slot-Configuration-Curved-Top-Bottom-Pins.jpg

Yeah, I know you don't think details are important, but you don't even
clue us in on whether the card reader is built in, or an external one,
like connected to a USB port. If built-in, you might have to open the
laptop case to check the cable is secure to the header.

That the OS can detect the device doesn't mean there is good contact on
the data pins in the SD slot.

https://www.electroniccircuitsdesign.com/sites/default/files/img/sd-card-pinout.png

Does the problem happen with every SD card you push into the slot, or
with just one SD card?

Did you use any encryption on the volume (whole-disk encryption) in the
SD card?

Do you have File Explorer configured to hide empty drives (View ->
Options -> Change folder and search options -> View tab -> Hide empty
drives)?

You can't clean the slot pins (other than to repeatedly insert and eject
a card to wipe oxide off the pins)(*), but you can try cleaning the SD
card foils. Use a white magic pencil eraser (polymer, no grit), *NOT* a
pink pencil eraser (the grit will score the foils).

(*) Only technique that comes to mind is get an alcohol swab (flat
cloth in a flat pack that you tear apart), and cut an old credit card
or similar flat piece of plastic to fit into the slot, and use the
plastic to rub the alcohol soaked wipe back and forth on the pins.

From what I could see from some online pics, the card slot is at the
front of the base of the case. Do you leave a card always plugged into
the slot? If so, doesn't card extend a bit out which means the slot
pins could get bent because of impact to the card.

Look yet in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) to check for yellow exclamation
marks denoting problems with hardware?

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

> Look yet in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) to check for yellow exclamation
> marks denoting problems with hardware?

I see in your reply to Paul that you got around to checking Device
Manager to notice the card reader was disabled. Hmm, wondered how that
happened.

On 8/12/2023 2:05 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
> VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>
>> Look yet in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) to check for yellow exclamation
>> marks denoting problems with hardware?
>
> I see in your reply to Paul that you got around to checking Device
> Manager to notice the card reader was disabled. Hmm, wondered how that
> happened.
>

I would guess someone wanted to make some empty drive letters disappear :-)

Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 12 Aug 2023 07:31:12 -0400, Paul
<nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

>On 8/12/2023 2:05 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>>
>>> Look yet in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) to check for yellow exclamation
>>> marks denoting problems with hardware?

Even when not working, it didn't have a yellow or other color
exclamation mark.

I would certainly have noticed that both when I looked at Device Manager
before I posted, and again after I first posted.

>> I see in your reply to Paul that you got around to checking Device
>> Manager to notice the card reader was disabled. Hmm, wondered how that
>> happened.

Gremlins. No one has been in this room since the last time it worked
right.

Or maybe a windows update did it.

>I would guess someone wanted to make some empty drive letters disappear :-)

I did want empty drive letters to not attract my attention, but all I
had to do to satisfy myself was not push the SD card in all the way.

I'm 95.4% sure I didn't disable it myself.

> Paul

On 2023-08-12, VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:
>> Look yet in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) to check for yellow exclamation
>> marks denoting problems with hardware?
>
> I see in your reply to Paul that you got around to checking Device
> Manager to notice the card reader was disabled. Hmm, wondered how that
> happened.

In my humblest of opinions, there's nothing better than this for USB debug.
https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html

Ankora <ankora1234567890@gmail.com> wrote:

> In my humblest of opinions, there's nothing better than this for USB
> debug.
> https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html

I use Nirsoft's USB Device View (USBDevView).

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

You can configure which columns to display to make less or more
detailed, but I don't recall changing the defaults. Right-clicking on
an entry has lots of options, like disconnect, uninstall a device (which
also deletes the enum data for the device which is handy to reenumerate
the device with fresh presentation data), disable/enable, open in
regedit (goes to the Enum key for the device), and probably more than
I've used. Considering the action you can commit on a USB device, it
really isn't just a viewer, but I suppose he had to call it something.