Lexar Media USB 12-in-1 Memory Card Reader (Refurb)

I had an old USB 1.1 card reader and needed something faster that would handle various types of cards including CF and XD. Although not the absolute cheapest, this was quite cheap, and certainly worth twice what I paid for it. It is fast, can read four cards (of different types) at once, and has a little operation light which can useful at times. It connects without trouble to the computer and has a built in lid which also acts as a stand when open. Great purchase.

I tried this card reader with my old AGFA ephoto 1280, which works fine. I picked this card reader because the description said it reads SmartMedia cards, and it does. It is easy to use ... plug and play. It read my cards just fine, and I thought all was well. Then I tried taking some new pictures. When I then put the card into the card reader the results were very puzzling. I saw images that I had deleted, rather than new images. When I copied those images to my computer, it turned out that I did indeed have the new images. Apparently the card reader is reading the new photo number correctly but incorrectly attaching a deleted photo file to that number. (When you delete files, they remain orphaned on the media until overwritten). Fortunately, it still finds the correct photo file when you copy to the computer. This was annoying, but the worst was yet to come. I believe this card reader has written some information to the disk, and now the camera no longer recognizes the card. I can't even reformat the card, using the camera's format protocal. I'm retuning the card reader & trying to find some new Smartmedia cards as I've ruined the 3 that I have. It's possible I can somehow reformat those ruined cards, and I have found a program on the web that claims to reformat them, but so far, I can't get the program to run. REALLY UNHAPPY. I did some web research and found a number of complaints about card readers and the potential damage they do to cards. I wish there were a way to test it in advance.

I got this for my Kodak Easyshare - I don't have the usb cord for it, and you can ONLY use a Kodak cord-too expensive. Well, I haven't used this memory card reader much, but when I did it was easy to use. Plug it in, and the pics just pop up. pretty self explanatory. and the fact that it was refurbished, just made it cheaper. I would definitely recommend this to a friend that doesn't have a usb cord for their digital camera.