I know nothing about digital cameras but used your web site to help me buy an Olympus 2020 as well as a LEXAR film reader as a gift for my husband.. The email below describes his problem. Since he has received no answer from LEXAR, I suggested we turn to you. Can you help?

From: Richard Bird Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 17:59:32 +0000 To: Subject: MAC Problem

Dear Folks:

My wife bought me an Olympus digital camera (C-2020zoom) and your USB Digital Film Reader for my birthday. I was quite excited and immediately took some pictures and then tried to transfer them to my computer, but alas I can't get the Desktop icon to appear once I insert the card in the Digital Film Reader.

I have a Mac: GS3, 128MB RAM, OS9. The only troubleshooting advice offered for this problem was that the device drivers may not have been properly installed. I have installed, uninstalled and reinstalled the software that was on the CD that accompanied the Reader. I have also downloaded the software for the Mac from your Web site and installed it. I believe the installation has worked. I can see that I have the following files in my enabled extensions folder:

Digital Film A Digital Film Drv Digital Film LDR Digital Film S

I assume that these are the ones your software installed.

I have your Reader attached to the computer via a USB hub. I am pretty sure that the hub is working since each time I try and fail to get the Desktop icon for the Reader to appear, I also test that I can still get an icon for my floppy disk which is also connected via the hub.

Forgive me if I am a bit naive about these things, but I was wondering if the Lexar Media PC Card Adapter, which came with the reader, is the device I need to read the SmartMedia from from the Olympus camera. I notice that the instructions for the use of the USB Digital Film Reader with the MacIntosh (page 3) say, after connecting the reader cable to the USB port, to "Insert the USB-Enabled CompactFlash, SmartMedia or PC card into the Digital Film Reader." Obviously the SmartMedia card from the Olympus itself will not fit into the reader, so does this mean that there is another type of adapter for SmartMedia cards other than the "PC Card Adapter"?

I would appreciate hearing from you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Richard Bird rbird@waterw.com

-- sara bird (sbird@waterw.com), April 26, 2000

Answers

Doesn't this device have two slots? The big one for compact flash or PC card on top, the second tiny/thin one for smartmedia below.

Try connect the reader directly to the computer instead of through the hub. Note that your computer going to "sleep" can freak out USB. Try going to control panels -> software update to get the latest USB drivers for OS9.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), April 27, 2000.

Richard, There is nothing wrong with your Mac. The problem is that the Lexar reader will ONLY read USB ENABLED flash media. I had the same problem with my Nikon and the Lexar reader. I have a PC, an iMac and an iBook and once I figured out the problem was the media/reader configuration it works great. I now use another USB reader & "regular" flash media and have the Lexar and the Enabled media as a backup. Hope this helps. I know it can be frustrating because the sales people are CLUELESS about this fine print.

Cheers.

-- Doug Cawthra (dcawthra@mac.com), April 27, 2000.

what? You sure you aren't talking about the jumpstart thing, and not the universal reader? (lexar has more than one type of reader). You must be.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), April 28, 2000.