How To Tweek Drivers?

I have an Acer Aspire 5102WLMi Notebook and I am having trouble with the SD Card Reader drivers. I am currently working on this problem with Microsoft and it appears the problem is either with Vista x64 or with the drivers themselves. If MS discovers they're at fault, I won't have to do anything else. If MS discovers the drivers are at fault, then I'll actually have to tweek them or find someone who can. What I'd like to know is how to go about doing this myself. I believe I have all the necessary SW Tools. I have the .CAB SDK, Windows Visual Studio Express Edition, Vista WDK and WINPE 2.

My drivers contain a .INF file, a .SYS file, and a .CAB file. What are the relationships between this files? Is the .INF file compiled into a .SYS file, or are these created separately. Also what parts of the OS communicate with each of these components. Will I have to tweek all three of these components or just one or two?

Can anyone point me in the right direction?



Thanks, John

Do you have software development experience? Or, more importantly, driver development experience? You are missing the most important piece of the pie -- the source code for the driver.

Also, before we discuss options for "tweaking" you need to understand very clearly what is causing the problem. Please tell us more about what type of trouble you're having. And can you include some detail about the driver itself, like a link to where you are downloading from? Additionally, detailed information about your card reader would be helpful. Is the driver a Vista driver or is it an older version?

If the driver is having trouble installing because of a simple installer misconfiguration (doubtful) you could fix that. However, unless you have the source code and a lot of experience, it's likely that you're not going to be able to modify it effectively.

Rob Redbeard

you could try installing different card reader drivers, there are a couple listed on my site:

64bitdrivers.com:: Laptop generic card reader for X64
64bitdrivers.com:: Ricoh internal card readers for Vista x64

Choogster,

Thanks for the links. I've downloaded both driver sets and I'll give them a try. I hope they have SDHC support. BTW your site looks like a valuable resource. Thanks for sharing it with me.

Rob,

I have some software development experience, none of it recent. Back durring the late 80's I wrote some 8086, Z80 & 68000 assembly language code and also, some 'C.' And, no I don't have the source code for the drivers. I didn't know I needed it; but I do now! Thanks for the info. I have a 32 & 64 bit disassembly tool called ASM. I can probably disassemble, the .SYS file I'm assuming, into assembly language. Since I'm not familiar with AMD TL50 assembly language, I would need to obtain a programmers reference guide for this chip.

I have the ENE CB 712/714/810 "5-in-1" Memory Card Reader, which supports SD/MMC, MS/MS Pro and xD memory cards. The Driver components are as follows:

*ENE CB 712/714/810 Cardbus Controller.
**(Controlls both the PCMCIA Bus & the Card Reader Bus)**
*SD / MMC Memory Card Reader.
*MS / MS Pro Memory Card Reader.
*xD Memory Card Reader

Here's the link where I'm downloading the driver from:

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/vista_64bit/

The file is "CardReader_ENE_v3.00.04.zip."

I located this in the "Travelmate 6292" folder. This is not my system; but the card reader appeared to be the same. The installer completed successfully and Device Manager reports that all components are working properly.

My system imnformation is listed below:

Acer Aspire 5102WLMi w/o Bluetooth, Orbicam, or TV Tuner
Model No: BL51
AS5102WLMI-MCEEN-TL50/15.4
ACB/512M/100G US
S/N: LXABH0J0116380F0B41601

**I recently upgraded to 4GB Ram & 160 GB HDD, as well as the OS, thereby voiding my warranty.

I'm was directed to the FTP site above, by a celebrated power user, because the AcerPanAm site only has drivers avaiavable for this card reader in Vista x32 & XP x64 versions. There was NOT a Vista x64 version available. Acer doesn't want to support OS upgrades for this model; but does so begrudgingly in a very piecemeal way.

I am currently working with Microsoft on the issue and Vivian @ MS states the affected OS files are "ntoskernel.exe" & "ntfs.exe." She recently escalated my ticket to a more senior support engineer. I don't expect to hear from the engineer until sometime next week. BTW, we've already troubleshot in "Clean Boot" & "Device Clean Boot Mode" and have determined that the problem is either with the drivers or with the OS itself.


Thanks, John

Choogster,

I've unpacked the Generic Card Reader Drivers and this is exactly what I already have, that I downloaded from the European Acer FTP site. The only difference is that the XP & XP x64 components are not included. The relase notes are exactly the same. I haven't opened the Ricoh driver set yet, though.

Here's an interesting bit from the release notes:

===== Release note =====
Version : 1.04.00
Date : 2004-07-28
1. Add feature --- Support 714B MMC driver.
a. Use 714B MMC driver -- Setup.ini, Section [Chip]
ChipVersion = 1
a. Use 714A SD/MMC driver -- Setup.ini, Section [Chip]
ChipVersion = 0

I checked Setup.ini and neither of these lines are included. I'm wondering if this configuration happens automatically or if there's a piece of code that sets this somewhere, like the Regsitry perhaps. Perhaps the wrong driver is getting loaded, because this variable is getting set to '1' instead of '0?'

Choogster said:

you could try installing different card reader drivers, there are a couple listed on my site:

64bitdrivers.com:: Laptop generic card reader for X64
64bitdrivers.com:: Ricoh internal card readers for Vista x64

Click to expand...

coljohnhannibalsmith said:

Choogster,

I located this in the "Travelmate 6292" folder. This is not my system; but the card reader appeared to be the same. The installer completed successfully and Device Manager reports that all components are working properly.

Click to expand...

Is it possible that because you're using drivers for the Travelmate 6292 when that is not your system that that is the root of the problem?

Despite the similarities, you can't exactly use BMW parts in a Volkwagon, can you?

I suggest looking for the drivers that have been designed for your system. That'll make all your problems go away. Ok, not all of them, but at least those related to your card reader.

I hear you. I used the Acer TravelMate drivers on the theory that since the card readers were the same, the drivers would be also. You can sometimes use Porche parts in a Volkswagen, or at least you used to be able to. Anyway Choogster directed me to a Generic Driver Set for this card; but I've unpacked it and the files and the release notes are identical down to the datestamp. There may still be some subtle differences I'm unable to detect, so I'll probably give these a try.


Thanks, John

dzomlija said:

Is it possible that because you're using drivers for the Travelmate 6292 when that is not your system that that is the root of the problem?

Despite the similarities, you can't exactly use BMW parts in a Volkwagon, can you?

I suggest looking for the drivers that have been designed for your system. That'll make all your problems go away. Ok, not all of them, but at least those related to your card reader.

Click to expand...

As the maker of the laptop in question is the same (Acer) I hardly think the card reader will be made by a different manufacturer. If you had actually looked on the website, you would have seen that the file names are exactly the same for many of the drivers listed for different laptops.

Choogster said:

As the maker of the laptop in question is the same (Acer) I hardly think the card reader will be made by a different manufacturer. If you had actually looked on the website, you would have seen that the file names are exactly the same for many of the drivers listed for different laptops.

Click to expand...

I've had that experience too, but the download archive filename doesn't make the driver. If it doesn't specificaly mention that it's for use with a particular piece of hardware, then it may not work.

Case in point: 64bitdrivers.com has 64-Bit driver for Canon Scanners that claims it is a unified driver. I tried it, but my scanner still didn't work.

The point is even if the driver claims it is unified for all intended classes of hardware, if it doesn't specifically mention the hardware you want, then chances are it won't work.

dzomlija said:

Case in point: 64bitdrivers.com has 64-Bit driver for Canon Scanners that claims it is a unified driver. I tried it, but my scanner still didn't work.

Click to expand...

Nobody has posted any comments about whether it works or not so its very difficult to say how many scanners it does work with.

Choogster,


I think you're right about it being that the same hardware would be continued to to used by the same company. BTW, I have checked the website and this driver set is being used under a couple of different installer file names for different PC models. I just hadn't gotten that far at the time of my last post.

I don't expect to hear back from MS until the middle of next week; but I've discovered something that may be enlightening and then again may not be. I installed the Generic Card Reader Driver set you directed me to and since I had been able to format the SD Card in FAT (default) at least once durring my previous BSODs, the Card Reader recognized it and let me open it and store files in it. I then backed out of it and attempted to perform a "Quick Format" in FAT (deafult), which completed sucessfully. I then tried to format the SD card in NTFS, with default file allocation unit size of 4096 KB, afterwhich my system Blue Screened immediately. This could be illustrative, since MS states that one of the affected OS files is "ntfs.sys." I then attempted to uninstall the driver set so I could try the Ricoh Card Reader driver set, and my system Blue Screened while attempting to uninstall the driver software. When I restarted my system, the "Quick Start Toolbar" on the Task Menu became selected all-on-its-own. Repeated attempts to uninstall the driver software continued to cause BSODs, so I took this to mean that my system had become unstable, so I performed a Complete PC Restore from my 250GB Seagate FreeAgent external HDD. Since I've been having so many problems, I backup religiously now.

Rob states above, that in order to effectively modify the driver set, I will need the source code. Further research has convinced me that he is correct. I haven't been able to locate an SW Tool that will decompile from Machine Code into C or C++. In fact as far as I know, none may exist and if one does, it's probably owned by a Chip Manufacturer, like AMD or Intel and would probably take a highly placed Hacker to obtain it.

I have contacted Acer and they adamantly refuse to release the source code; so I have also contacted ENE Technologies in Taiwan for assistance. I suspect, I may get a similar response. This may be a naive question; but you wouldn't know how to obtain the source code for this driver set, would you?


Thanks, John

coljohnhannibalsmith said:

Choogster,

I have contacted Acer and they adamantly refuse to release the source code; so I have also contacted ENE Technologies in Taiwan for assistance. I suspect, I may get a similar response. This may be a naive question; but you wouldn't know how to obtain the source code for this driver set, would you?


Thanks, John

Click to expand...

Alas, I think you've run into the 'closed' nature of drivers. They're loathe to supply any driver code - the only way is to track down an open source variety written by a third party for generic card readers but chances of that with a windows hardware device is going to be nigh on impossible....

Here's something interesting,

Boomerang Decompiler

"Boomerang
A general, open source, retargetable decompiler of machine code programs

* You can now support this project by making a cash donation.
* Lost source code? See our "Help! I've lost my source code." information page.

Introduction
This project is an attempt to develop a real decompiler for machine code programs through the open source community. A decompiler takes as input an executable file, and attempts to create a high level, compilable, possibly even maintainable source file that does the same thing. It is therefore the opposite of a compiler, which takes a source file and makes an executable. However, a general decompiler does not attempt to reverse every action of the compiler, rather it transforms the input program repeatedly until the result is high level source code. It therefore won't recreate the original source file; probably nothing like it. It does not matter if the executable file has symbols or not, or was compiled from any particular language. (However, declarative languages like ML are not considered.)"

**********************************************************

**This looks like a genuine step in the right direction. The website states that it can decompile C and C++ into source code, that can be recompiled and run; however, as the website states, the technology is very immature and Boomerang cannot handle large files and appears to only be available for the x86 platform. I think us x64 guys are out-of-luck for now. The bright side is that it's an open-source project and anyone can contribute. So, this might be of interest to some of you more experienced folks. With any luck, someone or many someones here will be able to understand what it's trying to do and be able to create the appropriate plugins to add additional CPU and language support.

I guess they call themselves "SourceForge" for a reason; because they're Forging source code.

-John

P.S., I just reread this last part :
"It does not matter if the executable file has symbols or not, or was compiled from any particular language. (However, declarative languages like ML are not considered.)"

**The statements appear to mean that the program can decompile executables; but doesn't consider declarative languages like "ML." If ML means "Machine Language," then these sentences appear to be contradictory; however, if ML means "Mark UP" language, then they don't. Anyway, this looks like the real Mc Coy; however, how useful it is in its current state of development appears debatable.

I have a parallel thread at:

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-hardw...ure-digital-causes-blue-screen-vista-x64.html


-John