T400 7-in-1 media card reader

Hi,

I just got a T400 (model no 7417 CTO) and did a clean install of XP. I got most of it working other than the 7-in-1 card reader. The lenovo website has the driver for the 4-in-1 Ricoh card reader but says nothing about the 7-in-1 one.
Moreover, my card reader does not seem to be recognized at all.

The device manager shows
1. SM Bus controller
2. PCI serial port
3. Unknown device

which are not installed.

How do I go about it ?
I got a lot of help from this forum in getting the rest of the installation going.
Thanks guys .. just set me off on this one ..

 

The 7-in-1 actually uses four media card technologies—so it’s kind of a 4-in-1 really and that driver is the one you want.

 

I installed the 4-in-1 driver but still the card reader does not show up ... do I need to install something else ?

 

try put the card in.

 

Ok .. I did that but things did not improve ... and now the m/c refuses to shut down and I have to power it off everytime

 

Trying booting your laptop from a Ubuntu Desktop Live CD (no installation required) to see whether Linux can detect a SD flash card in the reader. If not, you might have a hardware problem.

 

Good idea .. I was plannign to solve all the windows issues and then move on to Ubuntu ... but seems that Gutsy is the way to go ... thanks for pointing that out.

 

Ok so Ubuntu recognizes the card reader and can read memory cards from that ...
I have installed the 4-in-1 Ricoh drivers on XP but it does not recognize card reader & even on inserting the card nothing happens and in the device manager there are two uninstalled devices

1. PCI Serial Port
2. Unknown device

How do I go about it next ?

 

Bump, I have the same problem after a fresh install.

 

Try installing Lenovos's System Update ... it checks for needed driver files and in my case got the last missing one for the "unknown device".

 

Apparently the Ricoh 4-in-1 card reader driver was just that .. i.e. only for 4-in-1 card readers & not for the 7-in-1 I have. But the release notes for the 3.54.02 say that support for 7-in-1 card reader has been added and this is indeed the case ...

The driver is at :

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-70439.html

However after installing the driver, the card reader does not show up as a separate drive in My Computer as it used to do in my old Lenovo 3000 G .. but when you insert a card it works fine ..

Cheers ..

 

Tagged... because I also plan on installing XP when I get my T400.

 

Can i put the ghost image on an SDHC card, then boot the T400 and restore fremm there?

 

The 4-in-1 and 7-in-1 readers are the same thing. Four card types (SD, xD, MMC, Memory-Stick) but market it as seven cards (SD, SDHC, xD, xD Type H, MMC, MS and MS-PRO).

It doesn't show up as a drive like an external reader; just shows up when you insert a card.

 

Unlikely -- the card reader is not listed as a boot device. Been a while since I tried it but I put a bootable image on a SD card and couldn't get it to work while same image on a USB flash drive worked fine.

You know what's pretty cool though? You could try it yourself and see if it works. I wouldn't take anything I say as the definitive word on any subject.

 

Thanks. Just try it for fun. As you know, my EEE PC can do that easily.

 

Not sure about the T400, but the 5-1 reader on the x200 IS BOOTABLE.

I have used it with a live Linux Distro as well as simple DOS tools (e.g. HDDErase).

If you put a card in the reader and press F8 before Windows loads you should see the card listed.

 

I've tried. No luck. Only USB stick is recognized.

 

I guess the T400 is different then, because the 5-1 reader on the x200 behaves identically to a USB stick for booting purposes.

 

Difference likely stems from the 7-1 reader in the T400 being an "option" in place of a PCMCIA slot. Probably an extra controller layer involved so it requires drivers not directly supported by the BIOS.

 

I have a similar problem, but even after installing the driver, when I put in an SD card I get an SD Memory Card with a yellow exclamation in the Device Manager. I've tried other SD cards and none of them work.

Does anyone know what's causing this or is it looking like I'm going to be without my computer for a week if I drop it into a service centre?

Thanks