Expresscard not working in either Vista or Windows 7 on W700

[rjay]

I just bought an Expresscard CompactFlash reader and I can't get it to reliably work in either Vista (Factory restore) or Windows 7. Often, when I insert it, the machine will hang until I remove the card at which point I get a BSOD. Once in a while, it will install a "Standard Dual Channel IDE" driver when I insert it - and half of those times I can see the contents of the CF card (the other times, it's just blank).

I'm sure I've got all the correct drivers for Win7 but it's even weirder that when I revert to the factory install of Vista it still doesn't work. Any ideas ?

[emeraldgirl08]

Try a Livedisc session of a Linux distro and see if it works there.

That will rule out hardware fault.

[rjay]

Thanks for your reply - unfortunately it doesn't mean much to me and a Google didn't help.

Can you point me to a downloadable ISO of what you are talking about ?

[emeraldgirl08]

Try Ubuntu Karmic or Linux Mint.

When you burn the ISO to disc and are ready to try. Make sure you hit your F12 and choose your DVD/CD to boot the disc. You'll see an option to "try without installation." Choose that. It will then proceed to load the desktop environment. Once that is done try using your express card and see if it works.

We'll start off that way as I am not sure which livecd you will run.

A little reading on the Live CD system in case you're wondering just what that is