Windows 10 Laptop Question

Kountryguy wrote:
When I insert an SD card, it is not recognized. If I remove it, restart and reinsert it, it is recognized. Any thoughts on how to correct this problem?

Sounds like you are tying to hot swap the SD card, or flash drive (?). First thing to try is to go into computer's BIOS and makes sure that the SATA port the device is on has the hot swap feature enabled. All SATA ports hot swap feature are disabled by default on most factory BIOS settings.

dryfly wrote:

Kountryguy wrote:
When I insert an SD card, it is not recognized. If I remove it, restart and reinsert it, it is recognized. Any thoughts on how to correct this problem?

Sounds like you are tying to hot swap the SD card, or flash drive (?). First thing to try is to go into computer's BIOS and makes sure that the SATA port the device is on has the hot swap feature enabled. All SATA ports hot swap feature are disabled by default on most factory BIOS settings.

SD cards ARE "hot swap" and have NOTHING to do with the computer BIOS so please don't send folks on a wild goose chase.

SD cards use a CARD READER which does not ever touch the SATA HD ports.

Card reader is connected via USB ports (YES, EVEN INTERNAL SD CARD READERS ARE CONNECT VIA INTERNAL USB PORTS!).

The problem with USB is it is not a "high priority hard interrupt", it takes a backseat to other processes that have higher priorities. Meaning it may take multiple machine cycles before the OS checks for or sees a card in slot.

However I suspect, priority most likely is not the reason for the OPs issue..

I suspect the OP may have a card reader that is going south and/or a SD card going south, internal USB port with issues, driver issues (especially if this happened after any recent Windows updates)..

Many newer PCs now days also do not have native USB 1/2 speed ports instead they have USB 3 speed ports and through Windows drivers support the USB 3 ports are made backwards "compatible".. A broken Windows USB driver can disable ALL USB1 and USB2 speed support.. Pretty much all USB card readers are USB1 and USB2 speeds..

I would however hedge the bet and say, fair chance the reader or card is the problem..

Try the card in a different reader..

Try a different card in the same reader..

And yes, I have had card readers and SD cards fail..

Thanks Gdetrailer. Some of this is way above my pay grade, but I have tried the SD card in a different laptop and it works as I believe it should. The fact that the card works in the original laptop immediately after a restart is what has me confused.

Kountryguy wrote:
Thanks Gdetrailer. Some of this is way above my pay grade, but I have tried the SD card in a different laptop and it works as I believe it should. The fact that the card works in the original laptop immediately after a restart is what has me confused.

Sounds like a problem with the card reader or USB port it is connected to, restarting the PC most likely is not fixing the reader other than a fresh bootup will reinitialize the internal USB port and the reader it is attached to..

Assuming it is a built in reader to the laptop, replacing it may not be in the cards without replacing entire MB..

The alternate which isn't as convenient is to simply buy a external USB SD card adapter instead, but it is cheap and easy solution if that helps. Otherwise you would have to send laptop back to the manufacturers repair department (although if laptop is still in warranty that might be the best long term).

External card readers come in a variety of configurations, some look like a USB memory stick like this..



Which is a multi card reader capable of SD, micro SD and other popular memory cards for $11 HERE ..

You can also get external card readers that are a small box style on a short USB cord like this..



Also costs around $11 and available at Amazon..

If you want only SD, you can find those also, and they often look like the first pix I posted..

I keep a few external readers around since I have some desktop PCs around which don't have built in SD readers..

Note, I can't vouch for the quality of the ones in the pix, I used them to show you what these can look like.. As always, you can read the reviews and figure out if they are OK..

Just so you know my Win-10 box has an SD card slot in the side. it's part of the Computer not a USB device the CD-RW is a USB device, the Cassette Tape player is a USB device. the Big Ham Radio is Three USB devices. The Printer is a USB device ((You ask 3, on the radio Computer control. Push to talk and Audio))

There are more (the external half a terrabyte hard drive) but the SD card is a slot in the side of the computer..

Sometimes it does fail to see the card. other times it sees it straight off.

wa8yxm wrote:
Just so you know my Win-10 box has an SD card slot in the side. it's part of the Computer not a USB device the CD-RW is a USB device, the Cassette Tape player is a USB device. the Big Ham Radio is Three USB devices. The Printer is a USB device ((You ask 3, on the radio Computer control. Push to talk and Audio))

There are more (the external half a terrabyte hard drive) but the SD card is a slot in the side of the computer..

Sometimes it does fail to see the card. other times it sees it straight off.

Hate to tell you, just because the SD card slot is "built in" to the "box", it doesn't mean it bypasses the on board USB controller hardware on the MB.

PC manufacturers have only a couple of ways of interfacing external devices from the MB.

Very few devices have direct access to processor or memory.

Generally that is pretty much done through PCI, PCI-E expansion card slots OR one can use existing USB controller/hubs onboard..

Even your internal SATA hd controller is funneled through a PCI or PCI-E expansion controller..

That means on a laptop, ALL built in devices like your keyboard, touchpad, webcam and yes, SD card reader are interfaced through a USB controller/hub..

On desktop PCs ANY built in SD card readers WILL be interfaced to the MB using a USB controller/hub.. Basically it plugs into a USB header on the MB (IE, you won't find a USB looking plg inside the box)..

We use Ext Card readers ... and have not had trouble with access for years and years. Never have had a reader installed in laptop. Had one reader fail after a couple years - just bought another one, and back to work. In some cases, I trust an external plug-in more than internal. With internal, a hassle to repair or replace, but in the case of Ext card reader, just toss and get a new one.

monkey44 wrote:
We use Ext Card readers ... and have not had trouble with access for years and years. Never have had a reader installed in laptop. Had one reader fail after a couple years - just bought another one, and back to work. In some cases, I trust an external plug-in more than internal. With internal, a hassle to repair or replace, but in the case of Ext card reader, just toss and get a new one.

I would tend to agree with using external card readers, but as with a lot of newer PCs many come with a built in reader so may as well use it if it came with one as long as it works.

I wouldn't make a purchase decision based solely on having a built in card reader but they are pretty much a standard item included on most laptops now days and often included with a lot of desktop and even server PCs..

It is convenient to have a card reader built in to a PC, just insert SD card and you are ready to go.. Which is why a couple of my desktop PCs I installed internal card readers.

I have had one "internal" reader fail, it was a aftermarket one that I bought and it was designed to fit in a 3.5" floppy drive space and connected via internal USB headers on the MB.. And have had one external USB reader that failed reading SD but would read micro SD cards..

Externals are $10 or so and when it quits, buy another and move on..

We do a lot of photography work, and store images on an Ext SSD ... so we go from Card >>> LT >>> SSD without stopping in the Laptop. So more efficient in our case to go direct to storage. Then we load what we need for processing right into the main PC, and back onto SSD. Some might not find that effective, but for us, it works better. The Ext reader has always been more dependable, and we use it a lot.

Even when we had our LTs built, we did not install an internal reader.

monkey44 wrote:
We do a lot of photography work, and store images on an Ext SSD ... so we go from Card >>> LT >>> SSD without stopping in the Laptop. So more efficient in our case to go direct to storage. Then we load what we need for processing right into the main PC, and back onto SSD. Some might not find that effective, but for us, it works better. The Ext reader has always been more dependable, and we use it a lot.

Even when we had our LTs built, we did not install an internal reader.

Backing up images from the SD card to a second storage is a good procedure.

However, the devil is in the details as they say..

SSD drives, just like SD cards also CAN fail even just sitting around, I have had SD cards, SSD and yes even USB flash drives fail..

Failures on solid state storage are always fatal to every bit of data on the device and comes without any warning.

Folks think that just because solid state drives have no spinning parts that it will never fail or lose data when not in use or in use.. That is not true.

If it is data that you do not want to lose, you should have several types of backups.

For PCs, I create backup images of the entire drive (OS, programs and data) using drive imaging software to a separate spinning hard drive.

For just data, I make a copy of my files to another spinning HD..

This way I have tow different ways to recover the data plus at least one way to recover the entire OS, programs and data in the event of virus, ransomware or drive failure..

I also have an external USB spinning drive that has two drives setup as a mirrored pair (know as RAID 1 level). In the event one drive fails all of the data was copied to the second drive will be intact and usable..

Spent many, many years setting up servers for very important mission critical data centers.. If you want it to run 24/7/365 with no down time or data loss, drive mirroring or redundant arrays of drives are critical to the success of that mission.

For personal or light business use, a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device which can be connected to your home network is a great way to setup a mirrored drive or a Redundant array system with out the need for a server depending on the NAS unit..

Alternately, Win10 Pro Workstation does allow at least 5 sharing connections to that PC which you could setup with a redundant array using a extra add in SATA drive adapter that supports arrays..

Under no circumstances use RAID 0 which stacks the drives into a large array with no redundancy.. Lose one drive and ALL data is lost across ALL drives with that one.. people do it to take say two 2TB drives to get one 4 TB of drive space and due to the data being written in stripes across all drives it speeds up spinning drives.. Don't do it..

You can see more info on RAID levels HERE if you are curious..