Card reader/laptop problems

[talltony]

A friend of mine has recently bought a new Toshiba laptop (I don't have the model number) while on holiday in the States.She has just realised that the SD card reader doesn't work,ie if you insert a card nothing happens.As this was apparently a very cheap deal,I am wondering if ,in fact, the reader slot is just that,a slot, and not connected on this (presumably) basic model.
Is there a way that I can verify this? It doesn't show up in Device Manager but then neither does the one on my laptop which works fine.
Any suggestion please ?

Tony

Edit: It's running Vista

 

[Attleborough]

You could try downloading the latest drivers and see if the card reader is picked up and activated.

 

[davedyer]

Rather than looking through the device manager, does it show up when you look for it through START - COMPUTER ?

 

[Monsieur]

if it doesn't work you could always buy one of those cheap USB card readers

 

[centaur]

I have a fairly recent Tosh lappie which also won't read an SD card larger than 512mb.....due to some kind of limiter I think.

 

[bowser]

sd card reader.

What ever reader it is, it should see the card being inserted, if you have the sound turned up it will give a short tone as the card is put in the slot.
However it may not read the card, there are new HD SD cards, and some of the more low end far east cards are also now HD but DONT say it on the card, they are 32 bit card and formated for 32 bit, older card readers will only see 16 bit cards.
So check it with a known good card.

 

[talltony]

Thanks everyone,I've passed your wise words on.

Tony