Can't install Canon EOS Digital Solution disk

Question

Can't install Canon EOS Digital Solution disk

Hi,

Have got a problem installing 'EOS digital solution disk' which came with my Canon EOS 400D digital SLR camera. Here is a description of what happens:

I click on 'CANON EOS Digital Installer' icon as instructed. First something called 'MasterInstaller' launches, and I select 'Europe' then 'UK' when prompted. The main menu appears again and I select 'Install', then 'Next' then 'Easy Install'.

I 'Agree' the terms, then hit 'Next' in Starting Installation window.

At this point, 'Installer' launches and a window appears with the text "Preparing to install ImageBrowser" (with a blue striped barber pole type line beneath) but nothing happens. The blue stripes do not 'move' as is normally the case when something is working. It just locks up, and usually the Mac beachball of death will spin. I've tried leaving it ages to sort itself out, but nothing changes.

When I go into the 'Force Quit' option from the pull down menu in Finder, (as everything is stuck) the 'Installer' and 'MasterInstaller' are usually highlighted in red, I guess meaning they've either crashed or got lost. Sometimes the Finder joins in too (being highlighted in red).

I'm not running any other applications, and I've tried doing a Custom Install, (instead of 'Easy') and choosing only 1 application at a time, and disconnected my external drive but to no avail.

I tried emailing Canon, but they have just suggested I try loading it onto another Mac but I don't have one or access to one either.

Some help would be appreciated.

P.S. Gave disk to my partner to try on his PC and he said it loaded ok, so I assume it's not a faulty disk.

eMac, Mac OS X (10.2.x), G4 700MHZ 640MB RAM Mac OS X 10.2.8

Posted on Feb 9, 2008 10:19 AM

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Answer 1

Hans777

Level 2

445 points

Feb 9, 2008 3:57 PM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

OS 10.2 is very dated - have you checked the minimum system requirements for the Canon software? It will probably need at least 10.3. A way around is to use a USB card reader for the camera chip. That is the easiest way to transfer photos - I use it for two years now - no hassle with camera gear.

Hans

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Answer 2

Feb 9, 2008 6:09 PM in response to Hans777

Hi Hans,

Thanks for responding so quickly, as you can see it's my first post, so a good experience so far.

I understand what you're saying, 10.2.8 is old, but system requirements state "10.2 - 10.4 / 400MHz, G3 or higher / minimum 512MB RAM", thus I was expecting everything to work!

I've been using a card reader which is fine, so downloading photos isn't the issue.

What is, is that I want to try the "Digital Photo Professional" package (amongst others) on the disk as I'm using old image editing software and want something more sophisticated. This was one of the selling points of the camera for me.

It's a little annoying if I bought something and can't use part of it, and as the camera was expensive I'd rather not have to pay for an OS X upgrade just yet (yes I know I will have to one of these days!) as everything else on my eMac runs fine for my needs. Any other suggestions would again be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your (and anybody else's) time.

Cath

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Answer 3

Hans777

Level 2

445 points

Feb 10, 2008 9:54 AM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Cath,

were you asked to type in your admin password during the initial installation? You should have been. Anyway - boot your 10.2 installation disk and run Disk Utility > Disk Repair. Then boot from the HD and run Disk Utility > Repair Permissions. Retry the installation.

Hans

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Answer 4

Feb 10, 2008 11:42 AM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

As Hans suggested,

Try using Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, while booted up on your install disk. The link will walk you thru it.
You could have some directory corruption. Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them.

 Cheers! DALE

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Answer 5

Feb 10, 2008 5:55 PM in response to Dale Weisshaar

Hans777 wrote: were you asked to type in your admin password during the initial installation? You should have been.

Dale Weisshaar wrote: Let us know what errors Disk Utility reports and if DU was able to repair them.

Hello again Hans, and hello Dale,

I wasn't asked for an admin password at initial install....
I ran the Disk Utility and it appears to have successfully repaired the Mac Hard Disk.

This is what displayed when I ran DU Verify Disk:

Checking HFS Plus volume
Checking Extents Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
*Keys out of order* (typed in red)
The volume Mac Hard Disk needs to be repaired
Verify completed

On running Repair Disk I got same 4 lines as above then:

Rebuilding Catalog B-tree
Repair completed

Rebooted using HD then ran the Permissions Verify & Repair.

Sadly, the EOS Solutions still won't install. Am getting EXACTLY the same problem as originally reported.

Any other ideas?

Thanks to you both,

Cath

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Answer 6

Hans777

Level 2

445 points

Feb 11, 2008 4:07 AM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Cath,

I tried emailing Canon, but they have just suggested I try loading it onto another Mac

Insist to get real help with your healthy Mac running 10.2. It is their obligation to fulfil their promises.

Hans

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Answer 7

Feb 11, 2008 8:01 AM in response to Hans777

Hi Hans & Dale,

Just to keep you up to speed, here is a selection of the response I got from Canon on 8th Feb:

+"Please be advised that the EOS Digital Solutions Disk v13.1 is compatible with Mac OS X 10.2.8. It should say on the front of th CD itself Mac OS X (10.2-10.4).+

+To ensure that there is not a problem with the CD, please try installing it on another mac, if possible running the same version of the OS as you. Do you experience the same issues? If not, then this would indicate that there is no problem with the CD itself or the software on the CD and that the issue lies within your computer.+

+For further help and advice troubleshooting your system, please contact your IT support group."+

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -

Like I said before, I have no access to another mac, and the only people I know with macs are running 10.5 and (incredibly!) 8.9.

I got back to Canon and advised them of this so we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, if you have any more ideas, just shout!

Thanks,
Cath

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Answer 8

Feb 11, 2008 12:17 PM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Checking HFS Plus volume
Checking Extents Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
*Keys out of order* (typed in red)
The volume Mac Hard Disk needs to be repaired
Verify completed

On running Repair Disk I got same 4 lines as above then:

Rebuilding Catalog B-tree
Repair completed

So it still said Keys out of order ? That is a pretty serious error that Disk Utility rarely is able to repair. I would run it again and report to us exactly what is reported when you attempt a repair (not verify) please.

DALE

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Answer 9

Feb 11, 2008 4:27 PM in response to Dale Weisshaar

So it still said Keys out of order ? That is a pretty serious error that Disk Utility rarely is able to repair. I would run it again and report to us exactly what is reported when you attempt a repair (not verify) please.

Hi Dale,

Well, the plot thickens....

I kept running the DU repair (about 5 or 6 times), and interestingly enough kept getting EXACTLY the same message:

Checking HFS Plus volume
Checking Extents Overflow file
Checking Catalog file
Keys out of order
Rebuilding Catalog B-tree
Repair completed
No details or other messages about what the specific problem was. (Is there a way to find out?)
Well, I took another look on the link you posted and ran an 'fsck'. (I still have no idea what that means but it sounded as if it may throw up some info.) Indeed it did and here's what appeared after I typed '/sbin/fsck -fy':
** /dev/rdiskOs9
** Root file system
** Checking HFS Plus volume
** Checking Extents Overflow file
** Checking Catalog file
diskOs9: 0x8 (UNDEFINED)
Keys out of order
(4, 1886)
** Rebuilding Catalog B-tree
diskOs9: 0x8 (UNDEFINED)
** The volume Mac Hard Disk could not be repaired.
sh-2.05a#
(Hopefully there aren't any typos, I just typed this in myself, having written down the info on paper.)
Obviously the DU knows there's a problem, but simply thinks it's fixing it every time I run a repair. A bit like Groundhog Day I guess....
Now what??
Cath

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Answer 10

Hans777

Level 2

445 points

Feb 11, 2008 4:39 PM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Cath,

from your report it seems that DU is unable to do the necessary repairs. "Disk Warrior" by Alsoft is a more powerful utility that may be able to do the job. It is a commercial program costing $$. Your decision. Be sure to post results.

Hans

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Answer 11

Feb 11, 2008 8:59 PM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Yes Cath,
Hans is correct. Your system is in bad shape (probably why install doesn't work) and only the following will help;
If Disk Utility can't fix it, you'll need a more robust utility for the repair. I would recommend DiskWarrior. It is the best at directory repairs. It rebuilds then actually replaces your old directory. I feel every Mac owner should have a copy. Make sure you get the disk so you can boot up on it to run repairs. You can also install it on another drive and run it from there to repair this one. DW works faster that way.
I use DW once a month to try and catch errors in my system from getting too far out of hand.
If you have a good backup, hopefully a clone of your system before you had issues, an Erase and Install will also rid you of this issue. But, beware! You will lose everything on the drive with this procedure. Let us know if you need help with that!

 Luck! DALE

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Answer 12

Feb 13, 2008 3:14 AM in response to Dale Weisshaar

Hi Hans & Dale,

I agree this seems to be the route to go down.... Now having a problem trying to find the right version of DW though. It looks as if I need DW3, so I clicked on the 'UK retailer' link Alsoft suggested on their site, and it is discontinued, suggested to contact Alsoft.

I've just emailed the Techies at Alsoft so will wait and see what happens.

Will keep you posted so watch this space!

Cath

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Answer 13

Feb 13, 2008 11:23 AM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Here's version 3 on E-Bay.

DALE

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Answer 14

Feb 17, 2008 8:36 AM in response to Dale Weisshaar

Hi again Dale & Hans,

Since my last post I downloaded and ran the SuperDuper application and backed up EVERYTHING to my external HD.

Got DiskWarrior CD.

I started running DW but it gets to 'stage 5' (sorry, didn't make a note of the narrative) of repair process but started hanging (switches between mouse arrow for a few seconds then to proverbial beachball) and message underneath in brackets informing me: 'speed inhibited by disk malfunction'.

I left it a while, then killed it after half an hour as nothing seemed to be happening.

I ran the DW HARDWARE test for the heck of it and DW said everything was ok.

It's all making my head spin and I'm at a loss as to what to do next.

Should I just give up now and read my Mac its last rites?

Thanks,
Cath

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Answer 15

Hans777

Level 2

445 points

Feb 17, 2008 9:07 AM in response to ConfusedMacOwner

Cath,

Should I just give up now and read my Mac its last rites?

Not at all.

I recommend giving DW a second chance. Sometimes it will need several passes to get the repair done.
If not - there are more options for resurrection. Keep the forum posted.

Hans

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