mobilemate micro d33d21 not recognizing volume

Hello.

I recently purchased a sandisk 32GB microSD card that was shipped with a mobilemate micro d33d21 card reader.  I am using the device with WinXP SP3,  when I insert the device into the USB slot (empty OR with card) the PC quickly identifies it as a USB mass storage device and assigns it a drive letter.  However regardless of whether or not I have a card in the slot, the drive is identified as empty and I recieve the “please insert disk” error when I try to access the volume.   I have found similar complaints all over the internet though no satisfactory solution seems to be available.  

Am I looking at a failed unit or is there something I can do to get this thing working?

Thanks for your help