S4 memory 'locked'

My wife has this nice little Optio S4 I bought for her, but she never got round to using the memory card. We've had a couple of problems with internal memory "thinking" that there are images on the camera (so refusing to take photos) whne there are none.

Now, on switching on, she gets a sort of double whammy: a "no images or sound" message in display mode; AND an "internal memory full" message in photo-taking mode. Uh? Can't both be true?

Effectively the camera is locked: we can't take pictures. The obvious thing to do is reset the camera (menus still work) but the reset command doesn't appear to do anything. Other than give ourselves a memory card tutorial, any idea on what we can do?

She is using an Apple iBook, Mac OSX 10.2 and the S4 CD software, and has succesfully transferred many pix in the past.

Can you format the internal memory?

When you use a memory card for the first time in any camera it is also a good idea to format the card in the camera. This should prepare the card properly for use in that camera.

Rarely, a card can malfunction, and then it will need to be replaced. We've never had that happen so far, but have heard of people whi have.

Thanks John - I had a go at formatting the internal memory but that is not possible either - from the format command (with all the dire warnings about deleting data) the camera snaps back to "built-in Memory full" or "No images or sound" - depending on the mode I started in.

I hooked the camera up to my Mac, and it can see that out of 10.8Mb internal memory, only 160Kb is left - so there is 10.5Mb worth of data on the internal memory. One folder shows up on the desktop, and iPhoto has just imported pix from the "empty" camera

I don't want to erase it with the Mac - seems like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

*Stop press ...* just to top it all, as I write, the camera has frozen on me with the lens stuck out - juts like the major thread in this forum. Great. At least that settles the problem of what to do: it's back to the dealer - or back to Pentax direct. Any thoughts on which is better?

When you connect the camera to the computer it is effectively an external drive, so you could use your PC or Mac to format it, in theory at least.

As it is no longer possible, I guess back to the dealer (if it's under warranty in the UK the dealer is responsible) or otherwise straight back to Pentax. Don't forget members of Pentax Club get a 20% discount on servicing with Pentax (UK).

We do see a few problem cameras here on the forum, but I guess it will be the same for other forums covering other marques. On the whole I have found Pentax cameras to be pretty reliable. No consolation of course if it's yours that fails....

Hope that helps.

Hi John - thanks, I really appreciate your troubling to reply.

I agree in theory it should be OK to reformat the memory from a Mac - but I was hesitatnt because by default it's a DOS disk, and the Mac will apply an "alien" format. Maybe that doesn't matter if the camera just writes pictures to it - it was a question I was gearing up to ask, but now it's academic ... until we get it back, anyway.

It is under warranty. There are a lot of tales in the troubleshooting thread about a lens stuck out to some degree or other - as you say, forums will attract the negative feedback ... it is annoying though, because these are not arcane or rarely used features that are going wrong.

So, back to the dealer. Thanks again.

Best wishes

David

Only a thought, but have you changed the startup picture?

This could be filling up the internal memory, and is a protected file :
Try changing this back to the default startup screen.

Hi - thanks, mon General, but I don't think we even knew about startup pictures (I use the term "we" advisedly: I don't get my hands on this camera very often).

I wanted to end the thread positively. The recharged battery was enough to bring the lens back in (phew).

Once I'd dug out the receipts to take thing camera back, I thought (inspired by a post in the Troubleshooting spread) I'd just try a few more times to format the memory - which had previously seemed to fail.

Well, one time it succeeded - problem solved! Now it has a card in it (also formatted). So the old "try it a few times and hope it works once" approach to hi-tech machinery worked a treat.

Why? Hmm. The only thing I varied was the way I OK'd the format command: the S4 appears to offer 2 options: pressing the display button under the screen on the right (which morphs into an OK button in some situations); and pressing the centre of the 4-way controller (which is a fiddle becos it's small, and it's easy to press a direction by mistake). However, in this situation, it was only pressing the controller that worked (even then, not first time).

When we first got it we noticed something similar in various situations: the Display/OK button under the screen did nothing, but pressing the 4-way button dead centre made things happen. I thought that had got better, but maybe it's a consistent issue that we got used to and we stopped noticing. Anyway, maybe it will help someone.

Thanks for your help, people. Happy photography.

David