[CentOS] Video on (video-capable digital) still camera not accessible

[MHR]

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Jeff <jlar310 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Have you tried connecting to a completely different PC? Maybe your USB
> port or motherboard is flaky or some other hardware problem is getting
> you. If you know it's not a problem with the camera or card, then you
> can focus on your PC issues.
>
Haven't gotten there yet - I'm in the process of resurrecting an older
WinXP box with new disks and motherboard/CPU (and power supply, which
died yesterday).

However, in doing that, I had the opportunity to do some thorough
testing on my USB ports.  I'm reasonably sure they're not the problem.
 They all respond the same way to the card reader and the camera, but
they work fine with my flash drives.  Funny thing, though, is that the
ATA-to-USB converter I am using to transfer the disk images from my
old 40GB Maxtor to a not-as-old 160GB Maxtor is flaky - I would copied
all the files on the 40GB partitions (2) to one of my hard drives,
changed disks and copied them back from my hard drive to the 160GB
drive's larger partitions (something that MaxBlast used to do nicely
but is now almost totally useless for, unless you want _it_ to control
the partitioning), and I could never get a consistent file compare
through the connector.  I could run three compares in a row and get
three different results.  (Did this whole process twice, too.)

BUT, when I copied the files from one of my hard drives to another,
those all compared perfectly (of course), and when I tested the exact
same USB port using a flash drive, I also had no problems with the
compares.  Also tested on another USB port (on the back, through an
extension cable) - same result (good compare).

Bottom line: I'm pretty sure my CentOS box USB ports are all just fine
(they'd better be - I just got a new motherboard last fall), but I'm
going to get a new card reader today for the camera/SD issue, and I'm
thinking of returning the ATA-USB converter to the manufacturer as
defective, just as soon as I get the XP box up and running and can
verify _there_ (under a "supported" OS) that the same problem occurs.

> Try a completely different PC,

That's next if the new reader doesn't like my CentOS box, or
vice-versa, unless I get the WinXP box up and running first....

> and if that doesn't work, you need to
> call Canon.

Canon doesn't support Linux (hahahahahahaha!), but they did recommend
using a card reader, so, hopefully, the new one will be that answer.

Just for the heck of it, I also tried playing the SD card in my wife's
SX5 and that was a bust - for one thing, the SX5 is 8MP and the SX10
is 10.3, and it looks like they use different video formats, but the
SX5 also said the SD card was in an unrecognized format (!) - not sure
exactly what to make of that (other than that the SX5 will not help -
duh!).

Thanks, all.

mhr