i have just got one and cant get my sxs cards seen. I am a pc novice being a mac man. thought I had installed everything but I must have missed something off.

installed sxs driver pdz1 etc

I had the same problem and the only solution I find was to put the SxS card first in the slot and turn on the the HP 2133 after. You have to repeat this every time you put a SxS card. I have the model with Vista Business installed on.
Hope this help....

maybe i need to downgrade to xp? anyone else had this issue?

Phil, this is not an OS issue; it's the BIOS that may (or may not) allow PCIexpress hot-swappability.

One work-around is to boot the machine with an SxS card in, and then never turn it off but put to sleep (or hibernate) instead. May not be practical with a mobile machine, but works OK with my desktop.

Even this way, before inserting a new SxS card in, you still must use Device Manger to UNINSTALL the drive, and then (with the new card in) - use it again to SEARCH FOR NEW HARDWARE. Otherwise, the system will only see the contents of the original SxS card you booted it with!

any body else having same issue?

What ? That's ridiculous to have to do all that messing about.
My lappy doesn't behave like that.
Vista home premium.
Shove the card in the slot and i get the double beep noise, pull it out and get the double beep, next card goes in beep beep, and so on.

My lappy is an Acer 2920. 12 inch screen.Paid £500.
Dual core, 2ghz, 2gb ram.
Run clip browser and vegas no problem.

Paul.

Paul,
I have no such problems with my full-blown Vaio laptop, either. As Philip doesn't sound to be in such luck, I was trying to help him with my experience of using a PCIe-based ExpressCard reader in my desktop PC, whose MB's BIOS requires all this hassle. But frankly, since I almost never switch it off completely, it's no that bad at all.

My Acer doesn't behave like that either. I have had no problem hot swapping cards.
Running XP Pro SP3, in case it's relevant.

I use a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo 1505 without problems. There must surely be a software solution to Phil's problem.

Never heard of that. I have a Dell Latitude D820 - about two years old! Works fine with the SxS cards.

phil, what are the details of your hp 2133? vista version? all latest drivers/bios from HP's website installed? i dont have an hp 2133 but you might want to enter your bios setup when booting the computer to see if there are any options that relate to the issue. anything mentioning expresscard or ahci or hot-swap might be of significance.

maybe paul can give his configuration for comparison, since it sounds like his 2133 works.

btw ive got my eye on the kohjinsha sc3. i was originally interested in the gigabyte m912, but it actually looks quite big for a umpc, even more so than the 2133, definitely more subnotebook class. the sc3 is like the 2133 but smaller and faster and is a convertible tablet with touchscreen, of course it does sacrifice hdd space and costs a bit more, though. i believe it is actually the smallest computer available that has an expresscard slot.

i am so new to pcs that I dont know that is going on.

Am sure the reboot between cards thing is not an issue. My main issue is I cant see a card at all! Reinstalled OS, done everything. This is v weird.

Running Vista Home Basic 2gb memory...

Phil, even without the sxs driver installed, windows should be able to "see" another drive/card.

Go to "computer" then all the drives should be there.
Especially vista, first time i shoved an sxs card in the slot i had a pop-up saying"installing device driver" then the card was shown. When i installed the sxs driver i can go right into the card using just windows, ie SXS>BAPV>CLPR> and so on.

If i were you i'd take the lappy back to were you bought it, get a refund and get one of these lappys which i've got.
It's a cracking lappy. It's a 12 inch so not "ultra portable" like a 10 inch but still feels small compared to a 14 or 15 inch.

Acer 2920, 2gb version. Comet £500.
I actually took a usb key with clip browser and sxs driver on and an sxs card and installed the software on the display model to check it worked before i handed over the cash.

Paul.

Phil,

I found a solution that worked for me! I used the recovery key "F11" to restore the HP 2133 to how it was when I bought it. (The process takes an hour and erases everything)

After that I installed the most recent BIOS which is version F.03 (I had an older BIOS and so I downloaded this version from HP.com) It was a little bit tricky to install because the instructions were not clear -"like usual :-)" (obviously you can skip this part if you have the most recent BIOS)

If you don't know which BIOS version you have you can check by pressing the F10 key when the computer starts and go to File/System Information.

AFTER the BIOS was updated I installed the Sony SxS driver. Now when i go to Start/Computer I can see the SxS icon and now I can swap SxS cards as many times as I want without restarting the laptop.

Hope this will help. It seems to work for me.

how do you install the bios that is the bit that tricks me!