V-Tech kids camera not recognised by iPhoto or Finder

Question

V-Tech kids camera not recognised by iPhoto or Finder

Hi all,

My daughter got a kids digital camera for Xmas and prior to that I bought an old G3 clam-shell iBook for her to mess around with. I thought I'd transfer her pictures onto the iBook for her to see. When I plugged the camera in, iPhoto did not start. I manually started iPhoto and it didn't see the camera. I looked in the finder and it was there as a removable drive, so I unplugged the cable from the machine. A warning popped up saying that "the device was not properly removed". The iBook is running OS X 10.3 and iPhoto 4 (I think).

Now, I've also tried to plug the camera into my G4 iMac running OS 10.5.2 and iLife '08. It had the same problem: not recognising the camera then popping up a warning.

I have a G5 iMac to try yet, but I'm not hopeful.

Should I try a different USB lead? Has anyone got a similar camera and got it working?

Any help would be great!

Thanks

Stuart

G4 iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.2), Plus G3 iBook, G4 Powerbook and G5 iMac, Newton MP2100 and MP130

Posted on Feb 26, 2008 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

Smtr

Level 5

5,450 points

Feb 26, 2008 6:04 AM in response to Stuart Mingay1

Stuart,

I looked in the finder and it was there as a removable drive

That is how a camera does look if it is recognized by the Finder. If you select the icon for the removable drive, are there any files shown there? If you see a list of jpegs, simply drag them to the Desktop. Once saved, you can import into iPhoto (then delete from the Desktop).

When you have a device mounted (the removable drive icon) you must eject it before unplugging. Either click the little eject icon beside the drive icon, or drag it to the Finder Trash. Once ejected, it will be safe to disconnect the device. You got the warning message because failure to eject before disconnecting can damage the device or your computer.

If the Finder can't recognize the jpegs on the camera, then you can try Image Capture. Look in the Applications folder, launch Image Capture, and see if it recognizes the camera. If so, then you can upload the pictures to a Desktop folder. Once saved, they can be imported into iPhoto.

In general, if a camera uses a removable media card to store photos then it will work with a Mac. A USB card reader allows you to connect the card to the Mac, where it will mount on the Desktop. Then the photos can be saved as I described above. If a camera does not use a removable card, and isn't recognized by the Finder or Image Capture, then it probably won't work. I can't speak to your specific camera, since I have not tried it.

Regards.

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Answer 2

Feb 26, 2008 6:15 AM in response to Smtr

Hi Smtr,

Thanks for the reply, but while reading I realised I made a pretty important mistake in the original post; I meant to say "I looked at the finder and it WASN'T there as a removable drive"!

Sorry for that. Slight changes the situation doesn't it!

Stuart

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Answer 3

Smtr

Level 5

5,450 points

Feb 26, 2008 7:57 AM in response to Stuart Mingay1

Stuart,

Whoops. 😟 I'm afraid there's not much more you can do, then. You can go to Applications/ Utilities/ System Profiler and see if the camera shows up as a USB connected device. But I don't know what that would accomplish (might provide a way to eject but I'm not sure) as that doesn't help you get those pics into your Mac. It looks like you'll need to borrow a PC to download the photos, then transfer to your Mac.

Regards.

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Answer 4

Feb 27, 2008 2:33 AM in response to Smtr

I'd though I'd reply as I managed to sort things out. Using System Profiler with the camera connected showed that the USB couldn't see anything, but simply unpluging the cable and refreshing made the camera appear as a drive and I was able to import the photos normally.

Thanks

Stuart

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Answer 5

Smtr

Level 5

5,450 points

Feb 27, 2008 12:41 PM in response to Stuart Mingay1

Stuart,

Thank you for posting your solution. I'm glad you got the camera to work. It's good to know that there is a child's camera that can work with a Mac.

Regards.

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