Thinkpads Forum

After my successful clone of Vista Business from the original HD to an SSD
on my x200 tablet I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate on the drive.
After finding all the drivers I could, everything is working except the SD card
reader on the front. No light, no found new hardware, no mention of an SD
drive in Device Manager that I could find. I'm stumped! Assuming the drive is
OK (which I don't know for sure) anyone have any ideas?

Tim S

Pardon me for asking the obvious, but have you tried inserting an SD card into the reader?

Yes I did. But I have since found out that this is an 'express card' slot
and perhaps it doesn't read SD cards even though they seem to fit perfectly.
I'll keep searching, something'll come along!

Tim S

Um, that doesn't sound right. An express card slot is quite different from an SD card reader. An express card is much much longer and much thicker than an SD card, for one thing. If you can insert an SD card, it fits, and it ejects when you push it in, it's definitely an SD card reader and not an express card slot.

Proof that a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing! I thought the large
slot on the side was an old PCMCIA slot. It is the express card slot as you said.

So I'm back to square one. I'm guessing that the SD slot isn't working and that any
drivers that power it are part of the chip set drivers all of which I thought I had
installed. Maybe there is a conflict with Win7 somewhere along the line?

Tim S

This may not help since it’s for my x201 but I would think it might also apply to your x200.

Now that you’ve found the correct slot, insert a card and in Device Manager look for: Portable Devices.
On mine the SD card shows up as: E:\
The driver is from Microsoft 6/21/2006 ver. 6.1.760016385 (probably from the original install)

Mine is a clean Win 7 64bit install with whatever MS Updates were available and only the TVSU updates I prefer.
Neither MS Update nor TVSU show any specific card reader software as having been installed.

Note, when the card is removed the Portable Devices entry disappears

I didn't realize the card reader might not show unless there was a card in it.

Thanks for that I'll give it a shot tonight.

Tim S

Turns out that, at least for me, a driver was needed for Windows 7 (32bit).
The SD card slot is called Ricoh R5U880 Flash Media and the Microsoft
driver is from June 21st '06. A Google search revealed that
HP has a driver for Win 7 and it's the same one used for Vista and maybe
XP since we're talking 2006. I downloaded the HP driver which installed just
like a typical Lenovo driver and there it was finally. It's listed as a Portable
Device in Device Manager and shows up as a drive in explorer but only when
a card is in the drive.

So I'm done and thanks for the help.

Tim S