Successfully installing SDHC support for 2003 Server KB93442

[AGoodSolution]

HOW TO: Implemeting the SDHC card reader into 2003 server.

The WindowsXP-KB934428-v3-x86-ENU.exe http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Symptoms:

It is an XP HotFix that errors out on Vista or 2003 Server, despite the fact you can extract the drivers and whether Device Manager or Add New Hardware provides all the indicators and symptoms of a successfully manually installed driver, the SDHC 4GB+ cards are still inaccessible and you're prompted to format the card.

Querying google just returns massive amounts of descriptions of how Microsoft released the patch but none of these pertain to the solution, IBM doens't seem to support 2003 Server on ThinkPads so online resources there are non-existant.

A few sources on the web who were likely deconstructing the instructions in the *.inf setup files noticed a reference to the sdhcinst.dll and that file isn't included inside the HotFix package. The inf file copies the dll to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers directory but the file is still absent.

FIX:
Locate a copy sdhcinst.dll, it isn't located on the 2003 CD or inside ServicePack (even looked inside driver.cab/no noce) but it can be obtained from IBM as part of their SD card driver package but doesn't provide the hi capacity fucntion and found at this link and downloaded directly from::

Page / description of package
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67470

Driver File (less than 1 MB and fits on a floppy disk)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... da06us.exe

Copy the sdhcinst.dll to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers directory

Extract the KB934428 HotFix, you can execute the package from a compatible system and copy the files before finishing the install when it deletes itself, or you can just use the -extract flag and select a location. Easisest method is attempting to execute the HotFix on a Windows2003 server and the files are temporarily extracted to a directory before an OS mismatch error appears with just one choice of Pressing an OK button.

COPY THE FILES TO A DIRFERENT DIRECTORY BEFORE PRESSING THE OK BUTTON SINCE IT WILL SELF DESTRUCT.

Insert a SDHC card preferably larger than 4GB, the system may prompt you for a driver and if you are asked to install the hardware, point the New Hardware Wizard into the "select hardware" menus so you can point the wizard to a specific *.inf file.

Browse to the location of the copied drivers and find the SP2QFE\ic\
While loading 2003 Server onto an "older" Z60t 2511-E6U which apparently has an "older" Ricoh SD integrated card slot, we discovered we needed a Microsoft driver to enable support for 4GB+ SD cards.

Browse to the update\SP2QFE\ic directory and select any of the INF files since there is also a update\SP2QFE\ic file and both are identical. You may also be prompted to install another driver for the card, follow the same instructions to complete the installation.

You may have to reboot, but depending on how many failed attempts were made to install this driver, all of the supporting reisdent functions may be in place and you can access the card wihout rebooting.

IF the card appears as a device, but the contents can't be read, use diskmgmt.msc and verify the card has an assigned drive letter, if this still fials then reboot the system.

After reboot, verfiy if the card is readable.

If the card is still unreadable, then use a different method to access the card and one that has worked before such as an SD/USB reader or a camera.

IF the card is still inaccessible in those devices, then reinsert the card into a PC using a different but successful adapter and execute a chkdsk /f /x on the volume. Corrupting the volume is common since numerous attempts to install driver support for the card could've resulted from failed attempts and frustrated troubleshooting and hasty ejections while still tied into the voltage of the adapter. Also, if the card wasn't techincally readable, explorer.exe may not have provided an eject option and unless the engineer / owner likely would be fooled into just removing the card despite the fact it still has active voltage.

Excessive rude ejections will eventually ruin the card beyond repair but the card can experience noticeable degradation, errors and slower write and access which are the symptoms of a deterioating card that can be caused by excessive improper ejections.

Insert the card back into the newly installed card reader, if the card remains unreadable then properly eject the card using Add / Eject Device menu from the system tray or IBM EZEJect to cut the voltage to the card to properly eject it.

If a differet working SD reader is avaiable, verify whether the card is accessible elsewhere and locate another SDHC card to test inside the newly upgraded SD reader.

IF the new card fails then the reader is either defective or the driver is incorrectly installed.


The problems start when it turns out 2003 server SP2 didn't include support for this new driver since it seems Microsoft isn't migrating as many applications hotfixes such as those applicable to Media Player or other "entertainment" software that isn't typically found or used by end users on an enterprise server.

Of course, this eliminates the valid ambition of happy ThinkPad owners and corporate IT staff confident enough to load up a 2003 server onto an IBM laptop for non mission critical tasks when equipment and budgets are low.

In the case of the Z60 SD Reader, the Microsoft HotFix won't execute and errors out with an OS mismatch error before deleting the temp directory the drivers were expanded to.

Whether you use the extract switch or just capture the files before the update.exe flushes the randomly numbered directory..... you'd expect to just manually install the SD*.sys files either through device manager or using Control Panel / Add New Hardware option then drilling down through all of the menu to just select the *.inf file.

This fix requires installing a driver for the reader and separate driver that uses the same *.inf files to support the hi capacity cards.

The frustration really piles on since everything indicates a successful installation but 2003 server still can't read the SD cards, at best it would just mount a drive and prompt us to format it, we didn't experiment with that option but we suspect it would've error'd out when attempting to format.

Strangely, this solution was found at a Dell Latitude Notebook forum from a user attempting to install Vista while unable to activate their integrated SD reader. It seems the driver was written for a handful of manufacturers but has generic catchall option to support any SD reader on a PCI bus including the Ricoh devices commonly installed inside ThinkPads.

MJHUFF73 at Notebookforums made an original posting can be found at this link http://www.notebookforums.com/thread190158.html.

Understandably it could be considered rude of me to summarize his posting to this forum but it was when searching for an obscure term found inside the one of the annoying INF files which is how we found his solution and there seems to be more people suffering with this issue and just chalking it up to another Vista flaw and too many end users are trying to adopt to live with Vista but without integrated SD.

So at the very least, everything we could do to spread this fix to the ThinkPad community along with Huff's permission to redistribute his techniques is a worthy exception.