Empty multi-card readers reporting as valid "devices"

[Jeff B]

An empty multi-card reader registers its "slots" as removable drives. Therefore, they show up in the "devices" list even when they are empty.

Image Writer should check whether the drive has actual media in it before adding it to the "device" list.

[Jeff B (skydiver38)]

This:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3158054/how-to-detect-if-media-is-inserted-into-a-removable-drive-card-reader

mentions the use of IOCTL_STORAGE_CHECK_VERIFY2

[Jeff B (skydiver38)]

potential fix in lp:~skydiver38/win32-image-writer/updates

[Tobin Davis (gruemaster)]

Fix tested. It works partially, in that it will not show empty slots in the card reader, but it doesn't refresh when a card is inserted, requiring the user to restart win32-image-writer. Not sure if Windows (or the slot reader driver) has a hook for this, but it is low enough priority to just be annoying. This has been pulled into trunk for additional improvements as we go.

[Jeff B (skydiver38)]

I'm guessing then, that inserting a card doesn't trigger the "media inserted" signal that we're using to "autodetect" when media is inserted. I wonder if there will be a hook at all, if the only difference is that the media becomes "readable".

It's probably less annoying to have the empty slots appear, rather than having the whole card reader "unusable until app restart", but, your call. I'll keep looking for a way to get an update from the reader....