I have 3 HP NC laptops here. This is my experience.
First three important checks:
- Do you have Win XP SP3 installed?
- Does your cardreader support High Capacity (SDHC) SD cards?
- Check control panel -> system-> hardware -> device manager. Look for PCMCIA and flash memory devices -> Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller. Doubleclick on it en choose 'Driver'. This should be version 2.0.0.8 or later.
If you do not have WinXP SP3 installed -> please upgrade. The hotfixes that are mentioned earlier are part of SP3.
If you do not have the TI PCIxx12 controller then you should look for the newest driver for your particular Flash Memomy device and install it.
If you have the right controller then first uninstall the 'Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller' from Device Manager, then download the right driver (google for HP sp43509) and install it.
Sidenotes:
- I also used this sp43509 for the TI PCI21 controller on our old HPnc4200 and it worked great: now i can read both SD and SDHC cards.
- The driver version 2.0.0.6 does not support 4GB SDHC cards. The 2.0.0.7 version does, but crashes on my 1GB cards. 2.0.0.8 and 2.0.0.9 worked great.
- In the Device Manager you will also find a (Ricoh) Secure Digital host controllers -> SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller 6.0.4069.5 (1-10-2002). You don't need this (Even after uninstalling it I could read my SD cards), but you can leave this as
it is.