I have a sony vgp-mca10 memory card adapter and sandisk 1gb sd card. When I use this in a keyboard situation it works fine, however, when I try to use it on my pc it is not recognised. If I switch cards to a flash memory of 64mb it works ok on the pc. Can anyone advise if I can get the 1gb card working on the pc and how please.

Clear as mud. First off, San Disk is a brand, not a type of flash memory module or card. The type or types of card(s) the adapter will read is what is important. The type can be CF (Compact Flash), SD (Secure Digital), XDM, Memory Stick, etc. A SD type does not stand for San Disk - it stands for the Secure Digital type. "When I use this in a keyboard situation it works fine, however, when I try to use it on my pc it is not recognised." Does the keyboard have a flash card reader slot or slots, and the 1gb card works fine in that? Or does the Sony adapter work with the 1gb SanDisk type of card in a keyboard usb port? "If I switch cards to a flash memory of 64mb it works ok on the pc." With a card in the Sony adapter, or does the PC have (a)flash card reader slot(s)? If it is a card, San Disk or whatever brand it is, what type is this 64mb one? If not, is it some standalone unit with integral memory? ..... Read the install instructions for the memory card adapter. E.g. - you may have to install a driver for it, or follow a certain procedure to install a driver XP already has - - you may have to install the driver first, then plug in the adapter, or visa versa, in order for it to be recognized properly or for Windows to not install a default driver that does not work with it.

OK First whats being used. Sony vgp-mca10 is the card reader; Sandisk 1gb sd card (secure digital). Mitsubishi 64mb flash memory card (CF, compact flash). Keyboard (sorry) its a musical keyboard not pc keyboard. Well I hope thats clearer, when I place the card reader in the pcmcia slot with the 1gb sd card inserted the pc dosnt recognise it. If I change the sd card and put the cf card in its place in the card reader, the pc reads the info on the cf card ok. To confirm that the card reader and 1gb sd card was working ok (the sd card placed in the card reader, and the card reader placed in the pcmcia slot in the musical keyboard) this worked fine. By the way the card reader is a multi adapter, ie will read sd, cf, mmc etc

That's a lot clearer. Most of the people who post here have desktop computers, as do most of the people who answer questions. It is always helpful for you to state you have a laptop/notebook since we tend to assume you have a desktop computer if you don't state otherwise. If the drivers for the keyboard PCMCIA slot (I haven't heard of a PCMCIA slot in a keyboard before, but some have flash card reader slots, which are quite different) and the computer PCMCIA slot were installed automatically by Windows, XP usually does a pretty good job of finding the right drivers but it sometimes makes mistakes. If you installed drivers yourself for the PCMCIA slot support, it also isn't hard to mistakenly install default Windows drivers instead of the ones that you intended to install, especially if you let Windows find the drivers rather than directing it to the location of the drivers you intended to install. Also, if your laptop/notebook has older PCMCIA slot technology than the keyboard slot does, it may not fully support the Sony reader adapter. You could try: - load the motherboard chipset drivers for the laptop/notebook. If you have ever set up Windows from scratch on your computer, or have re-loaded Windows, you should always load the chipset drivers after Setup to ensure that Windows has the proper information about your mboard, and it's PCMCIA slot. If you are not sure they have been loaded, loading them again can do no harm. Sometimes there are newer chipset drivers available than were originally available that work better. However, if your laptop/notebook has older PCMCIA slot technology than the keyboord slot does, it may still not fully support the Sony reader adapter. - look on the Sony site for t-shooting info for the adapter. - un-install, re-install the Sony adapter drivers if there were any other than ones built into Windows. If there are newer drivers available than you originally used, use the newer drivers. If there were no special drivers that came with the adapter, un-install, re-install the Sony adapter Windows built in drivers, making sure you follow the right procedure. Of course, if you can find or have the install directions, follow them. If none of that helps, there may be nothing you can do about this problem. At least you have the situation that the adapter works properly when in the keyboard slot. If you have USB ports on the laptop/notebook, you could obtain another inexpensive card reader adapter for just SD, but it isn't necessarily a given it will cure the problem, especially if this is an older laptop/notebook, and/or you have USB 1.x and not USB 2.0.

ok thanks for info. The card reader didnt come with any drivers so I will take a look on sony site. My laptop has usb 2, so that is another route to investigate. I did look at the drivers xp have given on my laptop, however, none were for sony, so I let windows find a suitable driver. It does appear that the sony adapter works fine when the memory card is low (ie the cf 64mb card)but as you say sony may have the answer/driver. My laptop came fully loaded with xp from Packard Bell so I only have the recovery disk. In this case where and how will I be able to re-load the motherboard chipset drivers please. Sorry for ignorance but at 70 am struggling to stay in the 21st century.

All or most of the files that support a flash card reader are often built into Windows, so when you look at the Driver details, they may all be or mostly be standard Windows files. Most driver installs for devices are primarily, or sometimes only, *.inf files - information files - that tell Windows which files it already has to use with that device. Sometimes there are also special files included with the drivers other than the *.inf files that Windows doesn't come with that are added to Windows somewhere in order to make the device work properly, including special device driver files. For a flash card reader, there may or may not be drivers with *.inf files with or without additional special files needed, for the Sony adapter in this case - if nothing special is needed just following the proper install directions is sufficient - if custom drivers for the flash card reader are needed the install directions will tell you how to install them. I have seen people report that some flash card readers will only recognize cards up to a certain size with the standard Windows files - e.g. 512mb - probably because when XP was released ones larger than that were rare or non-existant. E.g. when you are running XP Windows Setup, even if SP2 is included, it can't recognize a flash memory device, such as card reader with a card in it, larger than 512mb, and you may also need to have a fairly recent mboard and bios, or if it does, it won't see that larger than 512mb amount until the latter stages of Setup. "My laptop came fully loaded with xp from Packard Bell so I only have the recovery disk. In this case where and how will I be able to re-load the motherboard chipset drivers please. Sorry for ignorance but at 70 am struggling to stay in the 21st century." You are doing very well for whatever your age - you are trying to learn enough to be able to figure out your problems. I'm 55 and I didn't start learning about computers until I was 37 or so myself. Like many older people, I went to school long enough ago that there were no personal computers in schools at that time. If you have never re-loaded Windows, it's unlikely loading the chipset drivers will help, except in the rare case that there were problems with the chipset drivers and they were corrected in later versions that you can now get, or in the extremely rare case that some of the chipset driver files have been corrupted, such as by a power surge or spike and the power you plug into isn't protected from that, or you have somehow accidently deleted necessary files - it's more likely you need to investigate the installation directions, or possibly, whether special drivers are needed, for the Sony adapter. If you have ever re-loaded Windows using the Recovery CD, it should load the proper chipset drivers automatically as well because that is what brand name system recovery CD's normally do by default. If you have re-loaded Windows using a standard Windows XP CD then you would need to install the chipset drivers again. If you do feel you need to try loading the mboard chipset drivers: If you could supply the model number of your PBell laptop so that the mboard chipset it uses can be determined by us, the chipset drivers are often available at the laptop manufacturer's web site in the software downloads for that model and we can point you there, or in any case the latest drivers can be downloaded directly from the maker of the chipset - usually Intel, Via, NVidia, SiS, ATI, etc. E.g. If it has a Via chipset, there is usually only one download needed because it includes everything needed for every main Via chipset. For XP that's here, and the newest one should work fine: http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1070 If you don't find a solution using what I have mentioned, since you have a fairly recent laptop with USB 2.0, you can always get yourself an inexpensive SD only card reader and it will probably work fine. You can usually find those at places that have a good variety of flash devices and card reader adapters.

Many thanks, thats really clear. The american site for Sony dosn't show a vgp-mca10 in there download list, and the english site has no download facilities at all, so I assume from that that there are no special drivers required. I am running Xp SP2 with all the latest updates so I can assume all the drivers are up to date. I have also just read from a review on this card reader that it will only accept 512Mb in windows. I believe my easiest solution will be the usb route as you have suggested, or maybe I will swop the 1gb for a 512mb card as the latter would be sufficient for my use. (I only bought the 1gb as there was little difference in price). Again thanks for your help. Regards