USB driver for SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus Card

[ivanbuto]

Hi everyone,

I recently purchased the following product:

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Default.aspx?CatID=1119

It's basically a SD memory card for digital cameras, with the advantage that it can also be directly plugged into the USB port.

I was under the impression that SanDisk had drivers for Windows 98, but unfortunately they do not. This is the response that I got from their tech support:

"Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. Unfortunately this card does not support windows 98, you can contact microsoft for usb mass storage drivers in order to possibly get the card working."

I wonder:

- Is the USB mass storage driver the file C:\WINDOWS\INF\geneuide.inf? I tried to manually use this file as the driver, but Windows wouldn't take it.

- How difficult would it be to write a driver for this card, or what modifications would one need to make to the geneuide.inf file work?

- If I wanted to use Maximum Decim's package, would I need to remove all my current USB devices from the registry?

Thanks for any help,

Ivan

[XP-is-a-CRAP]

"

How difficult would it be to write a driver for this card

"

I definitely would NOT do this.

"

If I wanted to use Maximum Decim's package, would I need to remove all my current USB

devices from the registry?

"

That's what I would do. Remove all crappy private drivers, then inslall Maximus.

Alternatively, resinstall Windows completely. Gives some work, but you get rid of all the

USB-related and other mess.

[LLXX]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;Q257751

That is probably the Microsoft USB Mass Storage driver they mention.

Actually what I would do is try plugging the card into the port, to see if it can be recognised by any existing UMS drivers you may have installed. Then try downloading the other drivers on the sandisk site for their other USB drives, what I've found is that all USB Mass Storage drivers are similar but can be coerced to work with similar types by adding new device IDs in the INF file. Maximum Decim is basically a generic driver with an INF file that includes many device IDs.

Edited June 28, 2006 by LLXX

[ivanbuto]

Thanks for your responses.

I already have several UMS drivers installed. I am pasting the contents of my geneuide.inf file from C:\WINDOWS\INF at the bottom of this message. Unfortunately, currently it does not work in order to recognize the USB SD card. I wonder, if I wanted to somehow add this device to the list, how would I find out what it's device ID is? Is this a hardware thing?

Also, would the USB entries in the registry (under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USB and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\USB\) need to be added manually, or are those written during the driver installation process?

----------

UPDATE - SUCCESS!

I identified the Hardware ID via Lavalys Everst Home Edition to be "USB\VID_0781&PID_6100&REV_9144,USB\VID_0781&PID_6100".

I subsequently installed the USB driver successfully by simply adding the following two lines to C:\Windows\INF\geneuide.inf:

[General]

%USB\VID_0781&PID_6100.DeviceDesc%=USBLS120.Dev,USB\VID_0781&PID_6100

[strings]

USB\VID_0781&PID_6100.DeviceDesc="SanDisk Ultra SD Plus"

I found that all the registry entries were subsequently created by Windows, including entries under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USB

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\USBSTOR\DISK

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Enum\SCSI

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\DiskDrive

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\hdc

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\USB

Kind of ridiculous that SanDisk would make this product officially "unsupported" for Windows 98!!

Ivan

Edited June 28, 2006 by ivanbuto

[LLXX]

This is not surprising, most USB mass storage devices conform to the same standard.

[ivanbuto]

Thanks again for the tip, LLXX.

Now, if some of you feel like reading some light entertainment (the suject being the capabilities of tech support representatives, such as competence, the ability to read properly and the ability to comprehend written text), here you go:

----------

Your Question/Problem:

Hi,

I bought a Sandisk 1 GB Ultra II SD Plus card. I could not find a driver for Windows 98 SE on your website, and I am thus unable to use it as a USB device. I thought I would be able to use this on Windows 98, based on the information posted at http://www.everythingusb.com/sandisk_ultra...plus_512mb.html. Could you please provide a driver for me to use?

Thank you,

Ivan

SanDisk Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Hello Ivan,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. Unfortunately this card does not support windows 98, you can contact microsoft for usb mass storage drivers in order to possibly get the card working.

Sincerely,

Ingo L.

SanDisk Technical Support

Your Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Hi Ingo,

making this card work under Windows 98 SE was as easy as adding the following two lines into the appropriate sections of C:\Windows\INF\geneuide.inf:

[General]

%USB\VID_0781&PID_6100.DeviceDesc%=USBLS120.Dev,USB\VID_0781&PID_6100

[strings]

USB\VID_0781&PID_6100.DeviceDesc="SanDisk Ultra SD Plus"

SanDisk could provide a driver for download by simply spending a few minutes and editing the already existing driver for the Cruzer USB flash drives appropriately!

Best regards,

Ivan

SanDisk Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Hello,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. It has been my pleasure to assist you. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again. We appreciate your interest in SanDisk products.

Best Regards,

Ingo L.

SanDisk Technical Support

Your Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Hi again,

I would appreciate if you could forward our correspondence and my suggestion of providing drivers to the appropriate department of your company. There is no reason not to provide drivers for older systems in a case like this, where the costs of doing so are trivial. Not all customers can figure out how to manually get this card to work, and it's safe to assume that there are some customers out there (not only in the United States) who would want to use this on a Windows 98 based system.

Best regards,

Ivan

SanDisk Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Hello Ivan,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. Our cruzers only work on 98 SE and up here is the driver.

Sincerely,

Ingo L.

SanDisk Technical Support

Please refer to the following link(s).

Cruzer family 98SE driver

Please refer to Link http://www.sandisk.com/assets/File/tech/do...98se-driver.exe

Your Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Dear Ingo,

you have apparently misunderstood my message. Once again, I am not asking for any drivers from you. I am asking you to let the people in your company know that they should provide drivers for this SD Ultra II Plus Card for Windows 98 SE, because, as I documented, it is a trivial task to do so and it would benefit customers with those configurations.

Ivan

SanDisk Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Hello Ivan,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. Unfortunately we do not support The Ultra cards on any OS lower then XP, therefore we dont have drivers for the cards.

Sincerely,

Ingo L.

SanDisk Technical Support

Your Response: (06/29/2006 07:25)

Ingo,

I will try this one last time. I KNOW you don't have drivers because you TOLD me. I documented to you how easy it is to get the card to work under Windows 98, although it is officially "unsuppported" under such configuration. Therefore, I am suggesting that your company SHOULD support this card for operating systems lower than XP, because there is no technical reason why this couldn't be done, and it would be at most a couple of minuted of somebody's work to provide the drivers and post them for download.

If you do not understand what I am trying to say, can you at least please forward this to the appropriate department of your company that is in charge of support policies, or could you give me a direct contact for them?

Thank you,

Ivan

SanDisk Response: (06/29/2006 08:00)

Hello Ivan,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. We have considered and evaluated supporting windows 98 on our cards and have concluded we will not do so since we are trying to move away from older and obsolete operating systems.

Sincerely,

Ingo L.

SanDisk Technical Support

Edited June 29, 2006 by ivanbuto

[LLXX]

They sure are stubborn

Reminds me of the time when I emailed another flash memory company (not SanDisk... I forgot which one) and told them that all the drivers they had on their site for the different USB drives they made (there was a driver for 32Mb, another for 64Mb, 128Mb, etc.) were exactly the same except for the deviceid in the INF file, but they didn't understand. All they gave was a standard "Thank you for contacting ... Technical Support" response!

[RainyShadow]

LOL, seems most Technical (Un)support staff are alike.

btw. if you'd like to contribute this modified driver, you'd upload it to driverguide.com and/or some other popular driver sites. At least you'll get your name written there

[pmshah]

I am not surprised by San Disk's response. Back in 2000 I bought a CF card reader made by them. Not one of the drivers on the included cd worked. I had to download them from their site during the good old days of dial -up -networking @ 2-2.5 kbytes per second & no resume. Removing the fragments of the already installed drivers involved yet another download of equal pain.

Since then I have not bought a single product of San Disk. On the other hand my experience with DataFab was excellent. Although officially unsupported these worked even on Macs out of the box without drivers. You can also buy SimpleTech (rebranded Datafab product at lower price) which works with Linux, all versions of windows & Macs. Except on Win98 you would not even require addon drivers.

In present times it is always wise to visit vendor's site & make absolutely sure that the product is fully compatible with your hardware & OS otherwise be prepared for cluttering your desk drawer. They are not even heavy enough to be paper weights.

Edited July 3, 2006 by pmshah

[Gruzer]

thx it work

[inigo45]

@ivanbuto

I followed your instructions and copied the two entries into the geneuide.inf. Windows recognized the Card as Sandisk Ultra SD USB but there is a yellow dot with an exclamation mark in it in the Device Manager. Thereafter I fiddled around and tried to update the driver with any thinkable alternative to no avail.

Any ideas?

Greets

Juergen

[ivanbuto]

@ivanbuto

I followed your instructions and copied the two entries into the geneuide.inf. Windows recognized the Card as Sandisk Ultra SD USB but there is a yellow dot with an exclamation mark in it in the Device Manager. Thereafter I fiddled around and tried to update the driver with any thinkable alternative to no avail.

Any ideas?

Greets

Juergen

Hi Juergen,

try to go to the registry (Start -> Run: regedit), find and delete all entries containing "VID_0781&PID_6100". Then, restart your computer and try plugging in the Ultra SD card again.

[thydreamwalker]

Sandisk is 98SE compatible....yet proper set-up helps....My "Cruzer's 1gb,2gb" go on auto-matically Now;..after adding a W2K file which allows for compatibility with 98SE and W2K media drivers in USB Products<<2Kmo <VSD2K.EXE> >>...just run the VSD2K.EXE from within Windows98 or 98SE and USB Storage Drivers will add through the Add New Hardware Control Panel setup from your Win98SE CD-ROM.***I opened my Very First"Cruzer"in W2K Adv Srv... to use all files like McAfee and Skype later on...Yet,then i formated with Fat16 so its compatible with older and newer systems!!! Since opened "Cruzer "adds itself as long as proper setup is installed on O.S.of my choice from Win3.1(*USB-woulda looked nice as a help system years ago as it works now with it beautifully),w95,w98,w98SE.W2K.XP....even Vista......even ,Linux too...yet don't use too much