I want to reinstall an internal CF/SD card reader that has been "safely removed" Windows XP. Specifically, I've noticed that in the newly remodeled east wing of the library, people have a tendancy to safely remove the internal reader on the windows machines rather than "eject" their card, which means I can't use the reader when I login... and there's no way to know which machines still have the reader installed and which have been previously used by morons until I spend the time to log in.

The two ways I know how to do this are:
1. Restart the machine
2. Unplug the reader and then plug it back in

Respectively, I don't like those options because:
1. I'd like a faster solution. The machines in the library are slow to reboot, and then take even longer to reload software over the network once I login.
2. I can't open up the case.

Obviously a third solution would be to not use the machines in the library and simply conduct my business at home, but beyond any desire I might have to edit pictures in the library, I'm really just interested in the general wisdom I might gain from knowing how to solve this problem. Any ideas?

4/22/2007 4:13:44 PM

Control Panel->Add/remove hardware?

4/22/2007 4:52:06 PM

"Windows cannot use this hardware device because it has been prepared for "safe removal", but it has not been removed from the computer. (Code 47)

To fix this problem, unplug this device from your computer and then plug it in again."

4/22/2007 5:06:03 PM

You can't do anything without rebooting or physically removing the device. The only other option would be to uninstall and reinstall the "USB Root Hub" to which the device is attached, but that requires a Power User account at the very least.

4/22/2007 5:29:06 PM