my camera [minolta DimageX20]has got an image transferation problem,i sent an email to Minolta to ask for help but i got a response as "please call our toll free customer service line". so i hope i'd be helped here, please excuse me if i am posting in the wrong forum.

i am using win98 and the USB driver has sucessfully been installed as there is an item of `Removable Disk(E: )` in `My Computer`. However, when i try to access the `Removable Disk(E:)` by double-clicking on it, a warning pop up saying `E: \ is not accessible. Device is not ready`. At the meantime there is a message of `Initializing USB connection` displaying on the LCD of camera and the buttons are all disabled, i couldnt even turn it off by pressing the ON/OFF button. (i am sure that the USB line is correctly plugged in both my PC and cam, and the memory card is IN.)
anydody know about this?
thanks a lot :)

This is a huge problem I have experienced with digital cameras. Some of the drivers are just buggy. The best thing to do is buy a card reader. Uninstall the software that came with the camera. Install the card reader. It will act as a removable drive. Insert the memory card into the card reader and it looks like a mini hard drive. Just garg the files to your hard drive.

Another advantage is you don't waste battery power on the transfer.

I had a similar initial problem, soon fixed.

I bought a digital stills camera and installed a PCI to USB card.
Windows detected the USB card and installed the GENERIC Win98 USB drivers.
[Which was the cause of the problem]
The generic Win98 drivers were not good enough for the job.
The camera could not be detected, EVEN WHEN SWITCHED ON.

I had to install the Win98 USB drivers that were supplied on a CD that came with the camera.
Then, when I connected the camera [nothing happened] and [only when I] switched it on [it's important to switch on the camera], an extra removeable drive appeared in Windows Explorer, after a delay of a few seconds.
The drive letter it was allocated followed on from the previous last allocated letter. In my case the last drive letter was G:, so the new camera/drive became H:
It showed:
Removeable Disk [H:]
__Dcim
____101dscim [the sub-folder holding the photo files]

Now if I go to "Device Manager" and view devices "by connection", click on "Computer" and click "Numlock + *" to expand the hardware tree.

I have beneath:
PCI Bus
__PCI to USB Open Host Controller
_____USB Root Hub
_______Digital Camera
_________USB Mass Storage Device
___________CAMERA

There are no Exclamation marks or red X's and everything is working.
The secret to this success was installing the Win98 USB drivers supplied with the camera.