ExpressCard Issue El Capitan

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Level 1

9 points

ExpressCard Issue El Capitan

Hi guys,

Hopefully you can help me out with the ExpressCard issues i'm experiencing.

If I insert an SD-card, doesn't matter if I use another one, the system doesn't recognises the card at all. Not showing up in Disk Utility either. The strange thing though is that it al works fine after reboot. But this only works temporarily, if i wait a little longer before inserting the SD card, again nothing happens.

My thinking is it must be some driver interference by the El Capitan engine. But I will leave that to you guys. What i've done so far is went to the website of the manufacturer to check for an update. But there isn't. Downloaded the current version and reinstalled it. I've reseted my PRAM and SMC controller. But the issue is still there, which is quiet annoying.

Setup:

Macbook Pro 2011 (17 inch)

OS X El Capitan 10.11.5

Transcend ExpressCard (TS-RDF1)

Thank you guys in advance!

Xander

MacBook Pro (17-inch Early 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jul 18, 2016 3:39 AM

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Answer 1

appreciate

Level 4

1,278 points

Jul 18, 2016 6:05 AM in response to XVL

An apple article is there : About the SD and SDXC card slot - Apple Support

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Answer 2

XVL Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 18, 2016 6:06 AM in response to appreciate

Thanks I will take a look at the article.

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Answer 3

XVL Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 18, 2016 6:10 AM in response to XVL

Have reviewed the article but it is about the factory default SD card slot. The MacBook Pro 17 inch model doesn't have a SD card slot. An ExpressCard Reader is actually needed to provide a SD card slot. I have an Transcend ExpressCard reader.

Do you have other thoughts on this subject?

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Answer 4

Jul 19, 2016 3:27 AM in response to XVL

I was going to say no Mac has used ExpressCard for years and had forgotten about the MacBook Pro 17". However this is still somewhat true if less so than I thought. (The MacBook Pro 17" has also been discontinued for a number of years.)

I suspect what has happened is that you have upgraded to El Capitan and this has 'killed' this adapter. El Capitan did effectively kill a lot of hardware devices due to using new security measures which as a side effect disabled a lot of old drivers. Some manufacturers have since updated their drivers to make them compatible with El Capitan's new security measures but a lot of older devices have not received such updates and I suspect this applies to your Transcend adapter. I did find this link for the driver http://www.transcend-info.com/Support/No-328 but it looks very old and unlikely to have been updated for El Capitan compatibility.

It is possible to manually turn off the new security features in El Capitan and then in theory some old drivers will work. Obviously this loses the new security measures making in theory your Mac less secure. See http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/05/disable-rootless-system-integrity-protection-mac- os-x/

In the long run you would be better off getting a new different adapter which is El Capitan compatible. This might have to be a USB one.

I did find the following ExpressCard readers which are El Capitan compatible -

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/legacyproducts/memorycardreaderwritere34.html

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/sdxcproreader.html

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/sdhctosxsadapter.html

You could look on eBay for a used one.

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