Canon G6 suddenly stopped working :-(

[Dennis Jensen]

I bought a brand new Canon G6 in New York City a little over a year ago. It has been working perfectly until yeterday where I used it quite a bit at a big party. My 1Gb Lexar Compact Flash had run out of space and I wanted to change to the 32Mb card that came with the camera. I had never used to small card before. I turned off the camera and replaced the flash cards. I then turned on the camera and everything looked fine at first. I took the first shot and the it gave me a message that "data was corrupted" (the message was in Danish, so I'm not sure what the actual message would have read). I turned off the camera and placed it on the table. After some 5-10 minutes I looked at it and the lens was out but the camera turned off. I could not turn it back on or off for that matter. I assumed that the battery was empty. The following day I recharged the battery and installed it in the camera. Still no life at all. I looked at the connectors to see if they were dirty and even polished them a little with a soft cloth. When looking at the battery compartment I noticed the date-battery and pulled it out. Plugged it back in with the normal battery. The camera now responded. It wanted me to enter the date and time. But the minute I press any of the buttons on the back, it powers off and can not be switched back on.

Could this be the date battery that is causing the problem? I should mention that I have not yet managed to power on the camera with my prefered compact flash card (the 1Gb). I can only get spontaniously power on with the 32Mb card inserted.

Since I bought it in New York but live in Denmark (Europe) I don't have that many official Canon support channels that I can go to - so I really hope that someone here can help me out.

Many thanks in advance for any reply that will bring my camera back to life !!
Dennis

[Action_Man]

I`m not an expert by any means Dennis but i suggest getting a multi-meter and testing the main battery and the date-time battery ...

[Dennis Jensen]

This thread got me to look more closely at the compact flash compartment.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=55465

And I noticed that one of the pins in the middle top row was bend and probable made a short curcuit, cause the camera would turn off if I only touched the back of the case.

I carefully straightened the pin with a mini screwdriver and the camera now seems to operate normally. My concerns are just - 1) has the bend pin caused any malfunction that I can't see right now? 2) The pin seems to have sunken into the back of the compact flash compartment. Is it connecting at all and could I experience problems later on? The pin must be used for something and if there is no connection - then what?

I guess the problem started when I inserted the 32Mb flash card that I have never used before. Looking at the connecting edge of the card, the whole the bent the pin does look a bit strange. Like there is a piece of plastic in there.

Thanks for your reply Action_Man - the barreries are ok.

Hope this topic can be of help to others experiencing the same problems.
Dennis

P.S. Great forum - it brought my good spirit and camera back to life !!

[Action_Man]

Glad to see your back to being a happy snapper again Dennis :D.

If it was me that had this problem - i would be tempted to leave the card in there permanently :) ...