At 06:52 PM 27/02/2005, Vincent Lee wrote:
Hi to all birdos have the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20GN camera or any
computer buffs
I am desperately would like you to shed some light on the subject.
I bought this camera two weeks ago. I read and followed instructions in
the booklets provided. Took some pictures (with the 16MB card
provided). The pictures were beautifully sharp and clear with different
zoom sizes (through the LCD viewer) and then something really weird
happened. I couldn't download pictures to my computer (running Window XP
Professional) using the USB cable privided. So I tried to install the
software provided but the computer tells me "there is no supported memory
card" when I tried to download.. Then I tried to install the driver and
the computer tells me XP already have one. When I connect the camera to
the computer using the USB cable and turn the camera on the only thing on
the camera LCD is a picture, there is nothing tells me pc access. There
is nothing on the computer screen tells me to view, save or copy
images. I first thought it might be the USB cable (provided) or the USB
port in my computer (although the scanner and the printer using USB
ports). I contacted a friend has the same camera and tried with his cable
and camera. He couldn't download his or mine pictures to my computer. I
then took it back to the store where I bought the camera from. It didnot
work there either and they told me to contact Panasonic helpline. Instead
I emailed to them and so far there is no reply. I then contacted another
friend has the same camera and tried with his USB cable and camera and
also his card reader. Again no avail. I then took the camera to a
computer shop and tried with one of shop's computers and hey presto it
worked. I unplugged it and reconnected a few times it worked
perfectly. The owner of the compute shop thinks it might be the USB port
in my computer. I then bought a USB 2.0 PCI card from him and guess what
it didnot work (I have not gone to see him yet). Following this I tried
three more different computers and also didnot work. I am completely
utterly bamboozled. Is there something wrong with the camera? Is there
something in the computers conflicting with the camera configuration? How
come only one computer recognized the "download" signal but not others? I
have a video camcorder and have no problem of downloading still pictures
or movies to my computer. My daughter has a Canon digital camera and has
no problem of downloading pictures to my computer. Can you help?
I can't speak specifically for the Panasonic, but most cameras just appear
like one more disk drive to the computer when you plug them in via USB. In
effect, the camera is just behaving as a memory card reader for the
computer. So I wouldn't expect the camera to do anything special when you
plug in the USB cable. Windows 2000 and XP have built-in support for USB
disk drives, which is why no special driver is necessary for them to read
pictures off the memory card.
Windows XP has a special pop-up window when you connect a USB disk drive,
but I wouldn't rely on this to decide if the computer can see the memory
card. Rather, look in My Computer for any new removable disk drives. The
pop-up window is the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service, and it's
possible it has been turned off. Have a look in Start-All
Programs-Administrative Tools-Services, and see if Windows Image
Acquisition has a status of "Started". If not, right click on WIA, choose
Properties, change the Startup type to "Automatic" and click on the Start
button.
If WIA is not the problem, I wonder if you don't have the generic Windows
drivers for cameras and Mass Storage Devices. At
http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?s=65fa33e95bfafbf0c562a265ea035285&p=580073#post580073,
someone this problem with another Panasonic camera, and had to copy the INF
files from another computer to fix the problem. This is non-trivial, I
suggest you print out the web page and get your friendly computer
technician to help you.
Apparently some Panasonic *video* cameras don't work if there are already
two or more USB devices attached. Try disconnecting all other devices, plug
in the camera and turn it on, then power down and restart the computer. If
that fixes the problem, a permanent fix might be to invest in a memory card
reader so you don't need to connect the computer to the computer at all.
On http://www.expansys.com/forumthread.asp?code=PAN109&thread=4&man=PANAS,
another Panasonic customer has encountered the same "there is no supported
memory card" message a few weeks ago. It might be worth adding a message to
the forum to ask if he or she solved it.
At http://www.dcresource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-931.html, someone
discovered they had some rust on their USB connector. Once they cleaned it
everything worked. You could try shuffling the USB cables so the camera
connects to a connector that you know is working for your scanner or printer.
Your camera works fine with another computer, and you can't get anything
off the card with a card reader when the camera is totally out of the
equation, so I think the camera is not the problem. I too wonder if the
problem was the USB connector on the computer. Do your other USB devices
work through the new USB 2 card? Can you try another USB cable to ensure
it's not the problem?
An interesting experiment would be to temporarily install your friend's
card reader on your computer. If that works with your friend's memory
cards, the USB port on your computer is fine. Now try it with your memory
card, and cross your fingers!
One more possibility is the memory card itself is corrupted. I wonder about
this, because you said the camera works fine on another computer. A common
cause of corruption is removing it from the camera while the camera is
still writing to it. If you can test with another memory card in your
camera, try that. There are several programs that can retrieve images from
a corrupted memory card. An article at
http://www.photoreview.com.au/Articlexasp/f663fa4d-f31e-4814-a802-7ed4f90da9d5/Default.htm
gives a review of them. Several of the programs have free trial versions.
After you've tried to get the pictures off the card, there should be a way
in the camera to reformat the card. That will erase all the pictures but
get rid of the corruption.
Let us know how you go, there may be others with a similar problem.
Cheers
Paul Foxworthy
---- Coherent Software ------------- http://www.cohsoft.com.au/ ----
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