BB9780 tells me the media card is not presently installed in the device

The media card has been installed since day 1 and I have tried a few other micro SD cards but the phone wont recognise any of them.

Is there anyway this can be fixed without sending the phone in for a hardware check which takes 5 weeks

Have you formatted the cards?

i have not formatted the cards as they work perfectly when i load them in my computer

So the cards are not the problem - it seems to be the card reader in the phone

No. Have you formatted the card in the phone? It's different.