SD Card reader not working on Sony Vaio

This laptop (Sony Vaio VGN-Z31MN/B PCG-6z2m) has been installed with Windows 7 64 bit, all the drivers from Sony's VAIO site are installed, and everything in Device Manager both (a) has a driver and (b) shows as working, no exclamation marks or warnings.

"Hide empty drives" in Folder options is disabled so the card reader appears, but will not read the card ("please insert a disk in drive O:").

Previously, when the laptop had Windows XP on it, it could read the same card.

Also, Windows update suggested driver ("SD Card Reader") doesn't work, Ricoh own drivers install properly but do the same behaviour. Other 3rd party driver suggestions from forums (Acer and Texas-Instruments FlashMedia) do not seem to install properly.

I would post the PCI id if I had it, but it was just showing up as rimsptsk\diskricohmemorystickstorage (while it had the Ricoh Driver installed).

Edit: If there are any lower level diagnostic utlities which might shed more light on it I'd welcome hearing of them. Anything which might show get it to put troubleshooting logs in the event log or identify chipsets or whatever...

Update: Device details are:

SD\VID_03&OID_5344&PID_SD04G&REV_8.0\5&4617BC3&0&0          : SD Memory Card
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2934&SUBSYS_9025104D&REV_03\3&21436425&0&E8: Intel(R) ICH9 Family USB Universal Host Controller - 2934
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0476&SUBSYS_9025104D&REV_BA\4&1BD7BFCD&0&20F0: Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or Compatible CardBus Controller
RIMSPTSK\DISK&VEN_RICOH&PROD_MEMORYSTICKSTORAGE&REV_1.00\MS0001: SD Storage Card
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&SUBSYS_9025104D&REV_11\4&1BD7BFCD&0&24F0: Ricoh Memory Stick Host Controller
WPDBUSENUMROOT\UMB\2&37C186B&1&STORAGE#VOLUME#_??_RIMSPTSK#DISK&VEN_RICOH&PROD_MEMORYSTICKSTORAGE&REV_1.00#MS0001#: O:\
STORAGE\VOLUME\{C82A81B8-5A4F-11E0-AACC-806E6F6E6963}#0000000000100000: Generic volume
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0822&SUBSYS_9025104D&REV_21\4&1BD7BFCD&0&22F0: SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
ROOT\LEGACY_FVEVOL\0000                                     : Bitlocker Drive Encryption Filter Driver
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0832&SUBSYS_9025104D&REV_04\4&1BD7BFCD&0&21F0: Ricoh 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller

Now going to search for drivers for that.

TessellatingHeckler

Posted 2011-04-06T18:15:28.917

Reputation: 1 122

1What size is the SD card?, have you tried other sd cards? – Moab – 2011-04-06T18:20:12.943

I don't know the size, but he says it works in his camera and used to work in this laptop before it was reloaded, so I guess the hardware is OK to read it. Haven't tried other cards - I don't know that he has any. – TessellatingHeckler – 2011-04-06T19:03:25.753

The driver has to be a 64bit driver, that may be the problem, that is an old card reader and there may not be a 64bit driver available. – Moab – 2011-04-06T21:42:05.437

Did the SD card reader ever work? – wizlog – 2011-11-23T17:38:25.823

I could not make it work; As the laptop was in a foreign country at the time, I ended up suggesting he take the card to a shop and ask for a compatible USB reader for it. I haven't heard anything about it since. – TessellatingHeckler – 2011-11-24T21:27:34.220

Answers

Try updating the drivers; for my VAIO VGN-NR21E/S (Windows 7) it worked perfectly.

bagnole

Posted 2011-04-06T18:15:28.917

Reputation: 11

I know this thread is super old, but though: Searching DriverPack yielded a working driver for me, and thus helped me set up a Sony VGN-Z31WN with a brand new installation of Windows 7 SP1.5.

https://devid.drp.su/?dev=PCI%5CVEN_1180%26DEV_0822

Be aware that the downloaded .exe package might contain adware when installed by executing it, but simply unzipping it using 7zip and then installing the plain old driver files found inside helps.

Benjamin Jentsch

Posted 2011-04-06T18:15:28.917

Reputation: 1

I spent hours on this earlier today, deleted, reloaded, updated EVERYTHING!

Device Manager always showed the reader and all devices as good.

In the end it was simply a matter of leaving the SD card in the slot while booting.

If the card is in the slot, it hot swaps and works beautifully.

Without it in the slot, it simply will not read a card.

So in short, I just leave an old 16MB card in the slot and swap it with my other cards when needed.

My best guess is some sort of compatibility issue with that particular ricoh reader and Win7, hopefully it'll be addressed in the future, but this trick did work for me.

Griff

Posted 2011-04-06T18:15:28.917

Reputation: 9

Did not work for me. Sony VAIO S 2012 – dukevin – 2013-02-07T22:48:48.080

-1

I'm guessing the SD reader is built in, have you tried to run the model of the SD reading in Windows 7 Compatibility Center? http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx

I had a USB SD reader that worked in Vista, but for some reason wasn't compatible with Windows 7, so it's worth a try.

w7pro

Posted 2011-04-06T18:15:28.917

Reputation: 692

It is a built in one, and I haven't tried it in the compatability center, but will do when I can find what it is. Sony have drivers for it, though, and Windows update does to. What behaviour did yours have under Windows 7? – TessellatingHeckler – 2011-04-06T19:47:59.020