Win7 recognizes camera but not as a drive letter

[gdpaige]

I need help with what I hope is a simple issue. I have a new Nikon D3s. When I connect it directly to my Win7 64 bit system (Dell T5400). tje system recognizes the camera but does not assign it a drive letter (e.g. M:), and instead simply lists "D3s" among other drive designations. windows Explorer seems to read this as just another drive, but PM does not see it at all. Am I missing something important in a system setting, or in the camera?  I cannot find any clues in the camera's setup. Thanks for any advice.
Gary Paige

[Kirk Baker]

Gary,

I need help with what I hope is a simple issue. I have a new Nikon D3s. When I connect it directly to my Win7 64 bit system (Dell T5400). tje system recognizes the camera but does not assign it a drive letter (e.g. M:), and instead simply lists "D3s" among other drive designations. windows Explorer seems to read this as just another drive, but PM does not see it at all. Am I missing something important in a system setting, or in the camera?  I cannot find any clues in the camera's setup. Thanks for any advice.

PM can only work with actual drives.  Unless you can put your camera in some sort of 'disk mode', PM won't be able to work with it.  We recommend purchasing a dedicated card reader.  They're faster and more convenient and preserve your camera's delicate USB-mini port (since you won't be using it anymore.)  Sandisk and Lexar both make excellent affordable card readers.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

Change the USB mode of the camera to "mass storage mode" and windows will assign a drive letter.

But as Kirk said ingesting from a card reader is the better solution anyway.

Cheers,
    Hayo

[gdpaige]

   Thanks, folks. Normally I do, in fact, use a card reader. it just seems reasonable that in a pinch one should be able to ingest  photos from the camera directly. I looked for that USB setting familiar with earlier cameras I have owned, but the D3s apparently does not have such a setting. I searched the entire owners manual for it....
    Win 7 has the capacity to view the D3s directly, and so the one time I ingested photos from the camera, I simply dragged the files over manually and then used PM to rename them all as desired and went about my way--this is just a modest inconvenience, really. I am wondering how Nikon Transfer can do this directly, however. does that provide any clue from your end?  If Transfer can do this, I'm betting PM might do so in some future update, no?
thanks again.
Gary

[Kirk Baker]

Gary,

   Thanks, folks. Normally I do, in fact, use a card reader. it just seems reasonable that in a pinch one should be able to ingest  photos from the camera directly. I looked for that USB setting familiar with earlier cameras I have owned, but the D3s apparently does not have such a setting. I searched the entire owners manual for it....
    Win 7 has the capacity to view the D3s directly, and so the one time I ingested photos from the camera, I simply dragged the files over manually and then used PM to rename them all as desired and went about my way--this is just a modest inconvenience, really. I am wondering how Nikon Transfer can do this directly, however. does that provide any clue from your end?  If Transfer can do this, I'm betting PM might do so in some future update, no?

It's something that I am sure is possible if we were to get libraries from Nikon and Canon, but we have found that using libraries from the manufacturers can be problematic.

-Kirk

[yhucken]

The Nikon D300 has the option to set-up the USB as “Mass Storage Mode” but for some reason the option has disappeared from the D300S.
Could it be because these newer models offer two slots for cards?
Yan

[Kirk Baker]

Yan,

The Nikon D300 has the option to set-up the USB as “Mass Storage Mode” but for some reason the option has disappeared from the D300S.
Could it be because these newer models offer two slots for cards?

I don't know.  But you'll be very happy with a dedicated card reader.  They're much faster than the cameras are at downloading photos.  Most are relatively inexpensive and are powered by your computer so you don't have to worry about the battery in the camera running out of charge before the download is complete.

-Kirk