4-Gb SDHC card not recognized by 1520

Greetings - I just received my 1520 last week and I continue to be very happy with it - except for one thing: I bought a 4-Gb SDHC card to use in it and neither XP or Vista will recognize it. I checked drivers for XP (Vista is still the factory image) and I have the latest. The card reader quickly recognized a SanDisk II 2-Gb card but not the Dane SDHC. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance...

 

Only recent card readers support SDHC. However that shouldn’t be a problem since 1520 is much newer than the SDHC standard, and hopefully DELL used a new reader instead of putting in some old leftovers to cut down on costs.

1520 spec says it supports High Density SD, if it means SDHC (SD High Capacity), then I have no idea why it doesn’t work.

 

Hi,

Try this:
http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor...3F10B3A4467393A3E040A68F5A284977&doclang=en#2

I had the same problem and it solved it.

Follow the instructions:
1. Install the update
2. Shut down the laptop
3. Press the MD button (next to the ON/OFF button, with a house icon on it).
4. After the Media Center has started choose Update

 

I did a clean install of XP and I dont have media direct - what do I do then?!?

 

installed update, but my Vostro 1500 does not recognize it!! bummer....

 

I think you have to have that Media Direct for the card reader to properly read SDHC - although I'm not sure why. I would like someone to clarify that for me.

However, when I first got my laptop back around Thanksgiving, that was one of my first concerns. At first I could not read SDHC. I blindly ran the update and now I can.

Until someone comes up with another solution, I'm keeping media direct.

 

I have a Vostro 1500 as well, so I assume I'm out of luck with the patch posted above. However, after a bit of digging I found this hotfix on the Microsoft site.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923293

Has anyone tried it?

 

Just a quick followup, answering my own question. The hotfix I mentioned above does work, so it's really a Windows driver issue, not a hardware issue. For Vostro owners who don't want to go through the trouble of e-mailing Microsoft for the patch, or waiting for Dell to come out with a hotfix which is Vostro specific, try this:

1. Download the hotfix mentioned above.
2. Instead of executing the EXE file, extract all the files using WinRAR or something equivalent.
3. Among the extracted files, you will see a file named "XPePatch_071009.exe". Extract this file in the same way as the EXE file from step 2.
4. Among the second set of extracted filed you will see the file which is really the Microsoft hotfix I described in the previous post. The filename is called "WindowsXP-KB923293-v4-x86-ENU.exe". Execute this file, restart the machine and you will have SDHC support.

It's a bit convoluted, but it works.

To answer 640K's question, I don't think this SDHC fix has anything to do with MediaDirect. For some reason that eludes me, Dell chose to make the Microsoft hotfix available by bundling it with a MediaDirect patch. Go figure.

 

Just did a search you can download from here http://thehotfixshare.net just do a search there for the said file KB923293-v4-x86-ENU.exe

No worries

 

thanks, the last two posts enabled me to fix my problem within 2 minutes.
....still cant believe it, it works!!!!!

Thanks
Christoph

 

forgot to mention: i just downloaded the file, double clicked it and windows installed the rest...super easy!

 

I'm not 100% sure I agree. I've reloaded my laptop twice and neither time have I had to reinstall the patch.

 

This thread turned out to have quite a life - I lost track of this request for info and finally got around to trying my SDHC again yesterday. Lo and behold, XP SP3 RC1 updates the card reader to enable it to read SDHC - at least on my 1520.

 

FYI, it's not SDHC but the ability to recognize cards of that size that the patch is updating.

 

sonicwind - Thanks for the info - I'm not really that familiar with the details but I heard that the inability to recognize the SDHC cards was because the older SD cards use FAT16 and the newer cards use FAT32 - and without the update the XP/card-reader combo couldn't read/write to FAT32. Anyways - its great to be able to use my 4-Gb to keep my...ahem....training videos on removable media.

 

Thanks, My Inspiron 6000 with XP can now read my 4gb sdhc

 

I should add thanks to the Post by BLACKRUSSIAN

 

Does just running the hotfix not work? Why the extract process?

 

Well I'm happy that your system has been fixed my friend.
Still drop in from time to time.