Canon PowerShot A540 Digital Camera - Answered Questions & Fixed issues

it seems to be the memory card slot is damaged normally 9 contacts connect with MC if any of it doesn't contact, will not work, open and takeout card slot if the contact is bend align it to touch the MC's contacts.

In the menu there is a 'clear all settings' function which will put it back to factory settings

You may try some photo recovery software to rescue the files on your digital camera sd card, here are some for your options.

Photo Recovery (for Windows)
Photo Recovery for Mac

Be careful: Before your pictures are recovered, do not attempt to save more files to the card in case the original files(your pictures) are overwritten.

is your battery charged

You cannot. Your camera is far too sophisticated and its sensor produces high resolution images, so to hope it can produce low resolution 320 x240 images as streaming video is not realistic.

According to Canon, your camera needs servicing.

What type and size memory card are you trying to use? The A540 works with MMC and SD cards, which max out at 2GB. It will not work with higher-capacity SDHC cards, even though they fit into the slot.

If you are using a memory card, take no more pics until you've recovered the photos, take the card out of the camera. This is to reduce the chance of you overwriting some of your "lost" photos. There are many good freeware photo recovery software options that are available to help you recover your photos. This blog article reviews and outlines several of the better ones.

Yes this can. Very easily also. See this link. Just remember when recovering to save your recovered photos onto your hard drive, and not back onto your memory card as that may overwrite lost photos prior to recovery.

check your battery

Take the battery out, that will turn the camera off.

You're using the wrong batteries. You need to purchase lithium batteries. They are quality batteries for high powered, battery operated electronics. Personally, I have a battery charger and use rechargable duracell batteries. (HR6/ DC1500/ NiMH/ 1,2V) Gives you approximately 16 hrs before having to recharge.

There are several possible causes for "memory card locked", "memory card error", or "no memory card". The most common is trying to use a 4GB or higher SDHC card with an older camera made before SDHC format came out. Other causes include problems with the tiny slide switch on the side of the card, or the electrical contact switch internal to the camera. The problem may also arise from simple formatting problems if the card has never been formatted in the camera (note that this will also erase the card). Troubleshooting tips for this problem may be found at this link.
You also mention recovering photos saved on the card. If you actually did take pictures with this card (assuming it's a 2GB or less standard SD card, as 4GB SDHC was not designed for your camera), you may be able to recover the photos using recovery software. See this other link.

Press cursor-up (marked with a lightning bolt) to cycle through the various flash modes. For fill flash, select the lightning bolt without the letter "A" to force the flash to fire. See page 8 of the Basic Camera User Guide http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/2/0900001192/01/PSA540_530CUGba-EN.pdf

On the A540, press cursor-up (marked with a lightning bolt) to cycle through the flash settings. Details are in the "Using the Flash" section of the Basic Manual (page 8 in my copy).If you need the manuals, you may download them from here.

Are you sure it's an SD card? Even though SDHC cards will also fit into the slot, they will not work in the A540. If the card is larger than 2GB then it will not work.

It's a lost cause. The A540 works with SD cards. While SDHC cards will fit into the slot, they are electronically incompatible and will not work in devices not designed for them. You need to stay with SD cards, 2GB and smaller.

Replace the date battery by following the instructions beginning on page 114 of this manual.

You can often successfully recover deleted files from a PC, phone or camera memory card or USB Memory stick, it just depends on what's happened since the files were deleted.When you delete files the data itself isn't deleted, just the index entry that says where the data for those files is located. The space containing the deleted files is also now marked as free space so it is available to the system for any new files to be written there instead. If and when that happens, then it becomes too late to recover your deleted files so it is very, very important to not save any new files or data to the device concerned.If the deleted files are on a memory card or USB memory stick, just don't save any new files to it. One of the easiest ways to see if you can recover deleted files is to try some file recovery software. Recommended asoftech photo recovery as it saved my life many times.http://www.asoftech.com/apr/

I recommend getting a USB card reader for your memory card.

You should make sure that the camera is on for the transfer. If that doesn't work, try another USB input.