Thanks everyone. I too would like to know why someone said not to use the camera's transfer ability; my camera came with a utility program & cable specifically for transferring photos. It has worked fine, knock on wood. As for the cards, I bought the same cards I always buy, but maybe they are making them differently now? not sure. Or maybe my card reader is malfunctioning. not sure. So I'll just keep transferring via EOS Utility for now. (which does not use up the battery that much, BTW--the transfer is fairly fast and the camera shuts itself off after it's done, if I have to let it go awhile/walk away from it)

Where is her mother? Why does dad have sole custody? If HE is the better parent, and he isn't willing to see or deal with her problems, then it becomes easy to see why she HAS the problems she has. Poor kid has been dealt a raw deal in the parents category. You have two choices: Stay & allow your kids to suffer along with you. You can try to make a difference in her life but there's no guarantee that you can get through to her. She has a lifetime of whatever happened in her 17 years to bring her to this point. She is angry & self destructive and neither of her parents gives a crap enough to do a thing. If they don't care, unless she WANTS your help, nothing you do will be well received. Meanwhile, your kids & her sister will learn from her example. Good luck when your kids are older. There's a good chance your kids will become resentful if you force them to be in a bad situation. They may lose respect for you for staying & I don't know how any of you can currently have any respect for your DH. Some guys stick their head in the sand... your DH is completely buried! His daughter is cutting, sabotaging her diabetes, is rude, committing crimes, and has problems in school. "she is always creating some kind of drama, and it keeps going up a notch -- probably to get attention." YA THINK???? "My husband did nothing." Sylvia is right... there ya go! It will continue to go up, notch after notch because her parent's don't give a crap! She is trying to get attention & if her dad doesn't step up, she will get her final attention in a funeral where everyone will ask why did this happen to such a young person? Then her dad will have to answer questions, like WHAT DID YOU DO TO HELP HER? Is he going to feel guilty the rest of his life when her life ends or is so screwed up because of him not doing anything now? That will be fun for you! Your second choice it to leave & save your own children from suffering through your husbands baggage. It is not fair to drag your kids into this situation & it probably wasn't the wisest decision to have a child with a man that isn't a very good parent to one of his existing children. What a mess & I feel very sorry for the younger children that don't have a choice in witnessing this mess.

I also have a cannon about that age and it clearly states it will not take anything over a 2 GB SD card. That would definitely be my guess as to why you get that error. I agree the point of the memory card is to use it to temporarily store the pictures on the camera till you can off load them to your pc and burn them to cd or whatever medium you choose, take the card in and have them printed out or what ever. Once you do that you have all the space on the card available again. I never use the cable to transfer pictures and never use any software from the camera it is just not needed when you can so easily use the memory card in a memory card reader.

OK, I'm about to share my top secret approach to doing things easily, Just between me and you, don't let anyone else know. I refuse to go hunting for downloads, so I designate where they go so I can find them immediately. This is done in the browser (if you're using that for downloads, better to use itunes but that will be next month). The following only needs to be done once-- have your son do it if necessary First we create a new folder (aka "directory") for downloads. Left Click on Start, then Left Click on Computer`. A Windows Explorer (not internet explorer) window will open. In the lefthand column, it will say Local Disk (C:). Right click on that, then left click on the choice New, then Folder. "New Folder" will appear in the column, but it's highlighted and it will change as you type. Type .....Download folder. We've now created a new folder at the location C:\Download folder Halfway done Open your browser, we need to redirect where downloads go. Firefox, click on Tools, Options, General, look for Downloads, Save Files to...type in C:\Download folder Or with Chrome - Click on Menu (Upper right 3 horizontal lines), Setting, Advanced Settings, Look for where it says Downloads, then for Download Location type in the same thing C:\Download folder Or with Internet Explorer - Click on Gear symbol (upper right) then View Downloads, then Options, then where it says Default Download Location, type in C:\Download folder Now, when in a browser and you click "Download" for anything, a photo or otherwise, it will go to C:\Download folder. Everything, not just podcast files. Done with onetime folder creation and browser setting change __________________________________________ OK, now that we know where they go, need to move them to the SD card. These two steps will be done every time you want to put something on the SD card Put in the SD card when the PC is running. A windows explorer window should open, the SD card should appear as another drive. Like E:\ or F:\ If WIndows Explorer doesn't open, left click as above on Start and then Computer. Step 1 - Find sound files in C and select ones to move In the lefthand column, Click on Local Disk (C:\), then the plus sign next to it, and then one click on Download Folder. In the righthand column will appear the files that have been downloaded. Highlight as many as you want (Hold down Ctrl key and then left click) to accumulate highlighted files. Then right click and choose "Copy" Step 2 - Copy to SD card Go back to the lefthand column, choose the SD card (E:\ or F:\ or G:\) and give it one left click to highlight it. Then right click, choose Copy. The files you chose in Step 1 are now copied to the SD card. Turn off the PC before removing the SD card (there's another way, but I want to keep it simple).