It is connected to the MB. I obviously did something in error when I re-formatted the computer. Me thinks I was suppose to assign it a number of drives??? There is no sign of it in the Device Manager. There are no exclamation or question marks there either. All my other USB ports are fine. Now one odd thing is that within the card reader is a USB 2 port - which works! It's a 9-in-1 card reader plus one USB port. I created a new partition (H) but when I re-inserted the SmartCard, nothing happened. There is also a small green ligth which activiates (within the reader assembly) when any card is inserted. But in my case, nadda. I am waiting to hear back from HP. There are NO drivers anywhere on their site. I'm from Canada btw. Thanks for the help so far! PS. It's not a bad little computer, but Everyhting is pre-formatted when you get it and no disks. One is expected to make back up discs on their own on DVD. I did make the back up discs and believe me when I tell you that I spent the better part of an hour going through just about every file on the back up dvd I made. I should just go buy a card reader (external) they're not that expensive now.