Problems connecting camera to USB port

**Vegz** · January 12th, 2005, 06:00 AM

Hello!

I just bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7 digital camera, with which I have taken several pictures, which I now want to load on to my PC. When connecting the camera to my PC and turning it on, the hardware installation wizard appears, recognizing the camera, as a DMC-FX7. But I can't find any drivers for this camera anywhere. Not on the enclosed CD, not on the Panasonic web-site or anywhere else I've looked.

Having browsed the internet for a while now, I have learned that Windows XP shouldn't recognize the camera as a DMC-FX7, but rather as a generic USB Mass Storage device, showing up in explorer as a removable device, without the need for installing any further specific drivers. This doesn't happen on my system.

If anyone has a remedy for my problem, I would immensely appreciate it!

I must add that I've tweaked my XP installation, by turning off unneeded services in accordance to www.blacviper.com and removed uneeded files in the windows folder, in the belief, that these files always could be found on my Win XP installation cd...

My system is:
Toshiba Satellite 1900-102 laptop
Pentium 4, 1,7 GHz, 512 Mb SD Ram
Windows XP Home Edition, SP2

I hope for a helping answer!

Kind regards,

Vegard

**Vegz** · January 12th, 2005, 06:12 AM

I should add that other USB devices are working fine, like my mouse and my printer...

Vegard

**Ferrit** · January 12th, 2005, 11:19 AM

Is there a setup file on the cd that came with it to install?

**Vegz** · January 13th, 2005, 07:56 AM

Originally Posted by Ferrit

Is there a setup file on the cd that came with it to install?

The enclosed cd contains setup files for Adobe Acrobat Reader, a program called Arcsoft for picture editing, Quicktime, a program called SDView for viewing the memory chips and a setup file for a USB Driver. But the setup file for the USB driver will unfortunately only launch on a Windows 98 system.

V.

**invisionable** · January 13th, 2005, 01:01 PM

Since you have disabled some Windows XP services, do make sure that Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service is on. This is the service provided in XP that prevents you from needing specific drivers for most digital cameras. Your USB connection seems to be fine from the symptoms you describe, it's just that XP doesn't know what to do with the device.

Originally Posted by Vegz

Hello!

I just bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7 digital camera, with which I have taken several pictures, which I now want to load on to my PC. When connecting the camera to my PC and turning it on, the hardware installation wizard appears, recognizing the camera, as a DMC-FX7. But I can't find any drivers for this camera anywhere. Not on the enclosed CD, not on the Panasonic web-site or anywhere else I've looked.

Having browsed the internet for a while now, I have learned that Windows XP shouldn't recognize the camera as a DMC-FX7, but rather as a generic USB Mass Storage device, showing up in explorer as a removable device, without the need for installing any further specific drivers. This doesn't happen on my system.

If anyone has a remedy for my problem, I would immensely appreciate it!

I must add that I've tweaked my XP installation, by turning off unneeded services in accordance to www.blacviper.com and removed uneeded files in the windows folder, in the belief, that these files always could be found on my Win XP installation cd...

My system is:
Toshiba Satellite 1900-102 laptop
Pentium 4, 1,7 GHz, 512 Mb SD Ram
Windows XP Home Edition, SP2

I hope for a helping answer!

Kind regards,

Vegard

**Vegz** · January 13th, 2005, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by invisionable

Since you have disabled some Windows XP services, do make sure that Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service is on. This is the service provided in XP that prevents you from needing specific drivers for most digital cameras. Your USB connection seems to be fine from the symptoms you describe, it's just that XP doesn't know what to do with the device.

Thanks for your reply!

I tried to enable the service WIA, set it to automatic, and rebooted, but the problem still remains. I also enabled the 2 logical disk services, thinking that they may have something to do with the problem, but with no luck.

Windows XP still recognizes the camera as a DMC-FX7 and asks for drivers for this particular device, which of course do not exist.

I'm now thinking of doing a fresh install of windows, having verified that the camera works without problems on other machines, but it is quite a defeat, since I now haven't reinstalled Windows for almost two years. But it usually helps...

If anyone could help me avoid reinstallation I would truly appreciate it! HELP! HEEEEEEEEEEELP! ;-)

**Vegz** · January 14th, 2005, 05:18 AM

Ahhhhhhh!

Finally!!!

The solution was to copy the inf-files from the windows folder on another computer and refer to this location when the hardware installation wizard asked for the drivers for the DMC-FX7 device. Windows XP then automatically installed the generic camera and mass storage device drivers. Appearantly these inf files were for some unknown reason missing from my windows installation...

Thanks to all you guys who bothered to provide me with suggestions to solutions. I really appreciated it! I hope this thread may help others with similiar problems as the one I encountered!

With best regards,

Vegard

**JudySt** · January 30th, 2005, 10:01 PM

I'm having the same problem with a different digital camera (Pentax ist DS). Please send details of how you fixed this problem. We have another computer that has Windows 98, so we might be able to get the needed file and load it onto our Windows XP computer? Installing the software that came with the camera on the Windows XP didn't help.
Thanks, Judy

Originally Posted by Vegz

Ahhhhhhh!

Finally!!!

The solution was to copy the inf-files from the windows folder on another computer and refer to this location when the hardware installation wizard asked for the drivers for the DMC-FX7 device. Windows XP then automatically installed the generic camera and mass storage device drivers. Appearantly these inf files were for some unknown reason missing from my windows installation...

Thanks to all you guys who bothered to provide me with suggestions to solutions. I really appreciated it! I hope this thread may help others with similiar problems as the one I encountered!

With best regards,

Vegard

**NooNoo** · February 13th, 2005, 08:36 AM

Judyst, welcome to Windrivers

Without knowing which inf files Vegz copied its difficult to help.

The camera should have come with the windows 98 drivers. Do you have the cd that came with it?

Have you investigated the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service as suggested on a previous post in your xp computer?

Can you list the symptoms you get with each machine?

**JudySt** · February 13th, 2005, 09:34 AM

Thanks for the help. We did solve the problem by downloading a patch to our BIOS, then restarting the computer. Now when we click on My Computer, Control Panel shows up and the Mass storage device (in this case, our camera) is in the control panel. Maybe that's the way it was supposed to show up before? We thought it would show up as a separate drive. Anyway, it works. Thanks again!

Originally Posted by NooNoo

Judyst, welcome to Windrivers

Without knowing which inf files Vegz copied its difficult to help.

The camera should have come with the windows 98 drivers. Do you have the cd that came with it?

Have you investigated the Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) service as suggested on a previous post in your xp computer?

Can you list the symptoms you get with each machine?

**NooNoo** · February 13th, 2005, 10:52 AM

Mass storage device is the correct term... it should have a drive letter though and if its in my computer it will have.

Yes thats how they appear.
Bios updates are often the cure for these oddball usb problems.