I've set up Windows 7 on my Dell Inspiron 531, and if fails to recognize my media card reader as well as the primary hard disk on my machine. Any ideas?

Anyone?

have you tried the Vista drivers for your card reader?

I've tried using the driver's disk that came with the PC, but it has no drivers specific to the card reader. I've installed the motherboard drivers to verify SATA is enabled and recognized, but no luck there. It's just the machine may not be compatible with Windows 7.

If you have Vista installation on that same laptop, try a program like Boozet Double Driver and backup the Card Reader drivers. Then use them on Windows 7.

For that main hdd problem, it seems weird that the setup won't recognize it.

Try to set up in BIOS the HDD from SATA to IDE and it should work.

Here's the SATA driver for you

It seems that DELL made a custom Vista DVD to work out-of-the-box with their laptop, including in Vista the SATA driver and the card reader driver.

If you know the name of your card reader, search for vista drivers and it should work just fine.

I've set up Windows 7 on my Dell Inspiron 531, and if fails to recognize my media card reader as well as the primary hard disk on my machine. Any ideas?

Well, just an idea about the card reader, but when nothing is inserted into the reader than windows 7 hides those drive letters...

And the primary HDD, no idea...