Sandisk Extreme IV card reader - Sony Vaio

I purchsed a Sandisk extreme IV card reader and 4G card a few months ago now and I cannot get my laptop to download from it. I have been on to Sandisk several times and the have kindly replaced the unit in case there was a fault with the original reader.

I am using a Sony Vaio TX1 laptop and a Maplin PC card.

I have spoken to the manufacturer of the card reader and they have told me that the card reader probably needs to have additional power going into it to supply the card reader. I have now purchased a power pack from them which connects into the card reader but it weighs more than my laptop and is very bulky. Is there another way to upload from the card reader without having to have the additional power supply.

Do any of you guys use this card reader, if you do what do you use for connecting it to your laptop.

All advice welcome.

Cheers Stew

Why not just use a cheapo USB 2.0 card reader. They seem fast enough, are very small and light and are cheap enough to carry extras when one fails?

Stew, just a thought, but I'm assuming you want to download pictures that you have taken on a camera from the card to your laptop. Right? Does the camera still show the pictures on the screen if you want to review them?

If so, can you connect a USB 2.0 cable diretly to the camera while leaving the card in the camera? The laptop should recognize the camera as a USB periferal and what ever editing/storage software you are using should ask if you want to download the images.

I know this method eats up camera battery power, but it is better than nothing.

If this is the card reader you bought, you're likely out of luck:

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(2015)...ire_Reader.aspx

Note in the middle of the page that it says: "*Supports ONLY 6 pin and 9 pin firewire ports."

That means it won't work with the mini-firewire ports on most laptops, including my VAIO. Ask me how I found out (I bought the same reader, which is now a nice little paperweight on my desk).

Stew, just a thought, but I'm assuming you want to download pictures that you have taken on a camera from the card to your laptop. Right? Does the camera still show the pictures on the screen if you want to review them?

 

If so, can you connect a USB 2.0 cable diretly to the camera while leaving the card in the camera? The laptop should recognize the camera as a USB periferal and what ever editing/storage software you are using should ask if you want to download the images.

 

I know this method eats up camera battery power, but it is better than nothing.

That is how i have been uploading from the memory card via the camera. I purchased the card reader for the speed of the uploads. I shoot in raw and jpeg so the files are quite large and it is very time consuming trying to upload on surface intervals. I do have a spare camera, which I have been swapping over after every dive. But I thought it would be far easier with the card reader, when you read the spec on it, it sounds great. they do not mention it needs to be supplied with an amount of power that your laptop cannot give.

The connection on the card reader is a 6 pin firewire, my Laptop has a 4 pin firewire which I thought I would be able to use, so I purchased the appropriate adapter only to find out that the 2 missing pins are the power supply, so this was no good either.

have you tried one of these?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PCMCIA-Firewire-IE...n/dp/B000OQA8AC

have you tried one of these?

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PCMCIA-Firewire-IE...n/dp/B000OQA8AC

yes i have. this is the pc card that needs to be powered. the pcmcia card does not take enough power from the laptop to power up the sandisk card reader. i have tried 3 different makes of pcmcia card and none of them have worked.

what i find strange is that these card readers were obviously aimed at people who work in the field, ie, journalists, papparazzi what ever they are called nowadays. they would obviously need to hook the card reader up to a laptop to fire images straight back to their editor.

Firewire from PCMCIA is NOT powered, so he'll still need a power source. He's still out of luck. Put it in the classifieds or return. Or give it away as a x'mas gift to a mac person.

Sorry you had to find out the hard way.

Firewire from PCMCIA is NOT powered, so he'll still need a power source. He's still out of luck. Put it in the classifieds or return. Or give it away as a x'mas gift to a mac person.

Sorry you had to find out the hard way.

for sale 1 x sandisk card reader .....bla bla bla

I can swap for a USB CF reader! hehehehehe.

could you power the PCMCIA card from USB?

I shoot only RAW, too, and the 16.7mp RAW files from the 1Ds MkII are pretty big, which is why I, too, wanted Firewire. However, having not found a workable compact Firewire reader (as I said, I bought the Sandisk reader and discovered it wouldn't work with my VAIO's 4-pin jack, too), I have just settled for a good USB 2.0 reader, which is still VERY fast (and WAY faster than USB 1.0), and makes it easy to download images between dives as necessary.

OTOH, using 8gb cards is also helpful, because I can swap out cards in between dives as necessary, and usually only download to the laptop at lunch and end of day.