Canon SD600 -> lens error when camera turns on, won't extend fully and makes grinding noise

Hello Dave.

The sound which you are hearing is the the lens motor. When you can start hearing an unusual noise hear, i would suggest that you take your camera in to your nearest repair shop, before any further damage is done.

The next step will be a lens error.

Hope this can be of help.

Kind regards
Andrea

You can try turning it off and back on a few times, maybe even remove the battery for awhile. If the lens is physically damaged or dirty inside the assembly / gears, it would actually need servicing to fix this. You'll likely need to look for a repair shop, a great one and probably the most popular for these Canon Powershot cameras is camerasandparts.com as they only work on the powershots. They tend to be the place if you need help with a canon powershot camera. They don't charge much at all and they do all of the service on the camera too. Go to that site and you'll see they have your specific lens error problem posted right there for your SD600. Good luck taking care of it, that's a very nice Canon camera model.

Problem: dust in the gaps near lens which makes it jammed. Effect: the sceen shows blk color. Solution: just blow over it or vaccum it.

Try these procedures.

sounds drastic but turn on cam and grab hold of lens to try to fully extend it manually. if you hear a crunching noise that means the gears are stripped. not worth repairing

Manually rotating sensor rotor inside camera and cleaning gear fixed the Canon "lens error" for me.  
I placed instructions with photo's here: http://www.avh.dds.nl/Fix-Canon-SD600-Lens-Error/

I followed the directions contained in http://www.avh.dds.nl/Fix-Canon-SD600-Lens-Error/ and by disassembling the camera and turning the rotor just a little bit (page 4 of the instructions), it freed up the lens and it is now working perfectly! The camera had been put down on the lens as the lens was retracting and I assume that jammed the retract mechanism. While the camera was open, I blew out whatever dust/dirt was there (didn't see much). The fix took me probably 20-30 minutes, and I am very pleased with myself!

Manually rotating sensor rotor inside camera and cleaning gear fixed the Canon "lens error" for me.  
I placed instructions with photo's here: http://www.avh.dds.nl/Fix-Canon-SD600-Lens-Error/

Press the power button on and hold it down while extending and twisting the telescopic zoom lens. It might fix your problem. In any case it could not make it worse Good luck!

My sister's camera was having the same trouble and after trying a few different things, i came across a solution that fixed her camera. Her error said "lense error, restart camera."

I held down the shutter button for a few seconds, then i held down the power button as well. I tried it once or twice and then it worked. I hope this helps!