Horizontal Lines

[kena84]

I have a problem that first started some time ago but I have had no luck fixing. We have a Pentax OptioMX camera. It took great pictures until this spring when my wife took it on a cruise. She says she didn't drop it, nor did it get wet, but all of a sudden during the cruise all the pictures started coming out with horizontal lines across them. They look great on the camera, but when we transfer them to the computer, things go awry. I'm probably posting too late to get a fix, our son is graduating military boot camp Friday and I was hoping we could take some pictures, we can't afford a new camera.

[DEvianT]

May be the memory card not the camera. I've had this fault with a dodgy memory card. Try another card or reformat this one (IN THE CAMERA ONLY) and test it again.

[kena84]

I've tried that, have three different cards. Results the same on all of them unfortunately. Do I dare try buying a new card? Think that might help?

[DEvianT]

Then I'd suspect the camera.

[mn shutterbug]

Maybe the usb cable or whatever you use to transfer them?

[readingr]

Ken,

Suggestions to try - use a card reader to get the pictures onto the PC - borrow or beg one to test. Failing that buy one they are quite cheap, make sure you have a USB cable to fit between the camera and the PC.

Failing the above take it into one of the self service photo stores and see if the same thing happens on their screens, or ask your local friendly Photo store if they could read the card for you.

Roger

[kena84]

All who have posted, thank you. I appreciate your thoughts, you've confirmed to me that it likely is the camera.

I've used a card reader to move files to the computer for a while and it's always worked very well, so I'm mostly confident it's not the card reader.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll have to look into getting it fixed, or replacing it.

[mn shutterbug]

I've used a card reader to move files to the computer for a while and it's always worked very well, so I'm mostly confident it's not the card reader.

I'd still suggest trying another card reader. Everything fails eventually, and usually without warning. Just because it worked yesterday doesn't mean it's going to work today.

[hank freid news]

In my opinion it may be memory card problem or it may be the usb cable problem. So you can check both things.

[California L33]

In my opinion it may be memory card problem or it may be the usb cable problem. So you can check both things.

Kind of an older thread. I guess we never got a post mortem on the cause other than a 'likely'. I could see a faulty reader causing the problem. I could see a faulty memory card causing it, but I've never heard of a USB cable causing this type of problem. Don't computers use error correction when doing the actual file transfer? You either get a perfect copy or nothing? (And if you're transferring a corrupt file you get a perfect copy of that corruption).

[Hayward]

If you tested it with other memory cards then i think unfortunately your camera is faulty. try consulting some technician before buying the new one.It may save some money...:aureola: