I have a Powershot A50, purchased 11/99. I had successfully used this camera for 3.5 mos. Then, for no apparent reason, went to load pictures onto PC & keep getting this message, "Failure to detect camera, check connection etc." Of course I did just that as well as purchased another interface cable to no avail. Then sent camera back to factory since it is under warranty & it was returned having been determined to have no problems. So factory says must be software problem. I uninstalled all of the software, reinstalled, but to no avail. Still get same message. Of course tried connecting to other port, checked pins, changed baud rates etc., but no success. I was told by Canon tech. to download twain driver off the Canon site, which I did, but still same message. I am not a "computer whiz" so needless to say I am totally stumped, but MORE SO I AM EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!!! Please help! Thanks, Karen

-- Karen E. Redding (EReddsky@aol.com), March 03, 2000

Answers

Do yourself a favor and throw the serial cable in the garbage. Go buy a Flash Card reader for $50-$70 and your troubles are over. I sell about 25 readers a week at CompUSA to people like yourself and own two myself. The download times will be cut dramatically and you can stop wasting time trying to get 17 year old serial technology to work. Heck you probably could have bought one already with the money you wasted trying to get the serial crap to work so cut your losses. My Nikon 950 cables have never seen the light of day.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), March 03, 2000.

karen, have you run something else on the ports to make sure the ports work?? My gateway had the second serial port disabled when i got it and i didnt try to use it for 2 years so i didnt know it....make sure your ports are good...on the other hand when i did get the ports enabled #2 was STILL bad and they are sending me another mother board...i can still use the second port...also just be sure the camera software asigns the right port to look for when downloading...anyway..good luck

-- andy lundberg (alunderful@aol.com), March 04, 2000.

Karen

Any chance that you installed a Palm Pilot or other device that uses the serial port. Many PDAs install a program that by default will capture your serial port. If you have a PDA go into its configuration program and change the "hot sync" program from always being active to only be active when the PDA application is running. This will free up the serial port to allow you to download your pictures.

-- jim fee (feej@polaroid.com), March 06, 2000.