Smart Card Device Problems

i enabled the 'smart card' service through 'Services' on my XP to interface my smart card reader with my VB6 application. i made sure all the required drivers are installed and the dll files in place. everything ran well yesterday, but today my VB6 application can't detect my smart card reader although XP states that the device is working fine, even the indicator LED showing a connection exists is lited up, but my VB6 application still cant detect the reader. can anyone help me in this?

What's the reader supposed to look like in your installation? In mine it looks like just another disk drive.