SimpleTech FlashLink CompactFlash/SmartMedia Reader

by SimpleTech

Product Details

Data Sheet [457kb PDF]

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Product Manual [191kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000630TQ
• Item model number: STI-UCS200
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 16, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

SimpleTech FlashLink is the perfect tool for quickly and easily transferring data between a PC or Macintosh and your CompactFlash and SmartMedia cards. You can move images, MP3 music files, and other data, all with transfer rates up to 30 times faster than you'd get from a standard serial connection. FlashLink requires no external power source and has a sleek, compact design, giving you hassle-free portability.

FlashLink offers true plug-and-play capability with USB technology. Simply insert your digital media card into the FlashLink and it will automatically appear as an additional removable drive, letting you drag and drop files with ease.

SimpleTech FlashLink is compatible with all brands of digital media cards and gives you a true high-speed USB interface of up to 1.5 MBps, supporting the maximum data transfer rate of the media. An LED indicates power status and activity. The reader comes with a CD-ROM for simple and speedy installation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works on XP, but..., October 1, 2002

By 

Marek (Groton, CT) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SimpleTech FlashLink CompactFlash/SmartMedia Reader (Personal Computers)

Once you manage to properly install this device's drivers on XP it works like a charm. If you will be using this device on Windows XP, do yourself a favor and forget about the included CD-Rom. Go to the SimpleTech web site, follow the links on the site to get to the support pages for the FlashLink product and based on your device's Part number (found on the base of the unit), download the latest FlashLink.exe installation program. Install this before plugging the device for the first time and reboot.

After rebooting, plug in the reader and allow Windows XP to detect it and initiate the Driver installation routine. It will ask you whether you want to install the drivers automatically and after you click Next it will ask you whether you want to allow the installation of Unsigned drivers. Answer yes only if you have downloaded and installed the driver package from the web site, the drivers supplied on the CD-Rom do not work and cause XP to crash.

If you have already installed the CD-Rom drivers and have problems, you must first uninstall them before installing the ones from the Web Site. Open the Windows XP Device Manager, plug in your device, you'll see it appear under the USB Devices branch. Right click on the CompactFlash + SmartMedia reader device and click on Uninstall. Unplug the reader, uninstall the FlashLink software (if you installed it from the CD-Rom) and reboot. Then install the FlashLink software from their web site.

After this hurdle, the device works like a champ. Once plugged, it will show two new drive letters in Windows Explorer, the first for the CompactFlash slot and the second for the SmartMedia slot. Data transfer is really fast, at about 4MB per second.

I give it 4 starts because of the poor job of providing XP drivers in the supplied CD-Rom, despite the fact that the packaging clearly states that it supports XP.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Snake Oil, July 23, 2002

By 

Bart A. Ochoa (Martinez, California United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SimpleTech FlashLink CompactFlash/SmartMedia Reader (Personal Computers)

The Digital Media Reader may work well with Windows 98,Me or 2000, but it failed miserably with XP. To add insult to injury when the SimpleTech web site was queried; mis-information was the best they could give.

During the hardware installation, the media reader(UCS-200) did not pass the Windows Logo Testing. I immediately aborted the process. I went to the Simpletech web site for advice. SimpleTech had a section just for XP and stated," just ignore Windows's warning and complete the setup process".

What a mistake I made, my operating system was degraded and became unstable. Until I'm able to recover from this misfortune, my computer shuts down whenever and frequent.

The news of bad and mis-leading service will spread exponentially from person to person. I hope that this is the exception and not the rule for SimpleTech.

Because of wrong information from the SimpleTech web site, I can not recommend a SimpleTech Product in the future.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast Downloads!, March 27, 2002

By 

Virgil Johnny - See all my reviews

This review is from: SimpleTech FlashLink CompactFlash/SmartMedia Reader (Personal Computers)

I have a digital camera and it used to take so long just to get my pictures transferred to my computer. Since I got the FlashLink reader, I just slip my compact flash card out of the digital camera, plug it into my reader, and download... fast! Very cool!