Once you plug the drive in, four new drive letters are added, one for each memory card slot. The Lexar drive has the same problem of all drives of this type in that the computer does not indicate which drive letter has the compact flash and which drive letter has the other media. But since the drive designations are the same each time you plug the Lexar drive into your computer, you can learn which is which. The first time that I plugged the Lexar drive into my XP computer, the computer kept telling me that I had added new drives which was a bit annoying. However, this only happened the first time and I have had no problems since.

I chose this Lexar drive due to its being USB 2.0. My current computer does not have a USB 2.0 port, but my next computer will and so I wanted to plan ahead. Windows gives me a warning that I have plugged a high speed device into a slower USB port, but it works just fine, just at the slower speed. (I can only vouch for how the drive works with XP. I don't know how well it works with other operating systems).

Overall, a great little drive to transfer files. I would recommend it to anyone with a digital camera or anyone who wants to transfer large data files between computers.


May be incompatible with certain systems.   February 28, 2004
 30 out of 34 found this review helpful

Purchased this item to transfer pictures from a Viking 128MB smart media card, to a PC running windows XP. The media card was being used in an Olympus camedia d40zoom digital camera. The reader plugged in, came right up as an additional disk drive. We easily transferred the pictures to the PC, no problem. We didn't try to format, transfer, or manipulate any information using the reader --- simply copied the photo files onto the PC. However, when I placed the card back into the camera, it would only give me an error message (wouldn't format, was no longer usable). Previously, that card had performed flawlessly, and I had previously successfully transferred several files from it using a Dazzle USB multi-reader (so I am pretty sure the card was fine). When I contacted Viking, they stated they had had similar complaints with people using the Lexar multireader, and that the card was completely ruined. We replaced the card with another Viking, and replaced the reader with another Dazzle, and it works perfectly. Sounds like from the other reviews, most induviduals have had great luck, so I wonder if it was the particular combination of hardware we tried to use??? Maybe the card coincidentally failed at that particular moment, but that seems unlikely. So if you have the same specific hardware/card combination, you might want to avoid buying this reader, and stick with the Dazzle. Other combinations may work just fine.


Lexar USB 2.0 Driver Crashes Win2000 Pro   August 30, 2003
 25 out of 29 found this review helpful

Beware of possible Windows 2000 USB 2.0 driver issues with the supplied Lexar drivers. I receieved one of these readers recently, and found that the driver packed with the unit (which matches the one you can download from their site) will crash my Win2000 Pro Service Pack 3 system, with a 'SPINLOCK_NOT_AVAILABLE' kernel error, whenever I plug the unit into the USB connector.

I emailed Lexar tech support and got no answer (except the automated one) after several days. I managed to get through to a live technician on their 24/7 online service this evening (after failing to raise anyone last weekend), and his advice was to *not* use any driver on Windows 2000.

This is contrary to all the printed materials packed with the unit, mind you, as well as the version matrix found under drivers on the Lexarmedia web site. Perhaps the latter Win2K service packs supplant the need for a 3rd party USB 2.0 driver. It would be nice, of course, for the driver installer to sense this, and not install a conflicting driver, which appears to be the case.

I uninstalled the driver, rebooted, and after telling the device manager to update the driver (it came up with an yellow exclamation point), it found a usbstor.inf file on my local drive, and installed it.

Now, it works like a champ. Nice, stable, high speed transfers.
By the way, I preferred the Lexar reader because I found (at least the older USB 1.1 ones) they run just fine on Linux, as well, so I can use them on either my desktop or my Linux laptop, running SuSE 8.1. I don't have USB 2.0 ports on my laptop, so I can't tell you if the RW018 runs under Linux, there, yet.

On a related matter, I had a SanDisk Ultra 128 MB CF card go bad on me recently (couldn't write or format the card) and SanDisk replacemed the card for me under their 5 year warranty. They even paid UPS shipping both ways. The replacement card carries a lifetime warranty. Very responsive technical support, compared to Lexar, I must say.


Does what a reader should do, though the design is wacked   January 17, 2005
 24 out of 26 found this review helpful

All in all this Lexar card reader does exactly what it's supposed to do read from almost any Digital memory card on the planet. So if you're looking for a quick multiformat card reader. This could be a good choice.

A few things to keep in mind though: the first is the design. The door opens by being pulled down, that wouldn't be bad, but it's a curved piece of plastic so the card reader is held off the table by the cover, take a look at the pictures, and you'll see what I mean. Also, the USB cable attaches to the side and not the back. So if you're looking for a card reader to sit on a table next to your computer. All neat and tidy you my will look elsewhere. I think this was more designed for on the go. Throw in a backpack etc.

Those were a few things I wanted to mention.
Have some fun and get it done


Better than I expected   September 6, 2003
 17 out of 17 found this review helpful

This little compact unit performed flawlessly just by plugging it into my USB2 port on my WindowsXP operating system. Instantly I was presented with six additional drives; each card slot shows up as a different drive. I could actually insert multiple cards and read them all, or transfer from one to another. It easily fits into pocket or camera bag. And it's fast!