Canon S410 Memory Card Error Fix

Did you ever have one of those Canon digital cameras and after using it a while got the dreaded Memory Card Error? It’s a common problem with the S400 and I see various forums all over the net where people try to deal with it. Mine is an S410 the next model up the line. I bought it new 3 years ago and it worked fine up until last Christmas day, after we had taken all our pictures the thing gave me a memory card error and refused to work. I wound up buying a memory card reader to get the pictures off. Replacing the battery and changing the memory card did no good and to top it off, the warranty had expired and I was stuck with a 400 dollar paperweight.
I started doing research on the net for the problem, and while I didn’t see much on the S410, I did see a lot of people complaining about the S400 which is basically the same camera. The first thing that seemed to work for other people was the replacement of the bio battery. It’s a tiny battery under the front cover of the camera and you have to remove the cameras front and back covers to get to it. This means dealing with 8-10 very and I mean very tiny screws so be forewarned if you try this. Some people said just to remove the battery from its holder for a few minutes, others said to replace it. I looked all over the net for a battery and the only place I could find one was at miropower.com out of Miami Fla. So two weeks later I had my battery and guess what, it didn’t work.
I read where Canon would fix the camera and pay for shipping just by writing them and telling them about the problem even if it was out of warranty, so I did that, and got back a letter that said my camera was out of warranty and it was a minimum of 120 bucks plus any parts I had to have plus shipping.
Undaunted I continued my research and ran across this website that offered a card cleaner that said it would fix my problem. Stands to reason, the only time I got the memory card error was when the memory card was in the camera, so three weeks later I had my card. I followed the directions and cleaned the inside of the cameras card holder, and true to form, that didn’t work either.
That was it, I gave up and the camera sat on the table staring at me and reminding me what a failure I was. Then one day I had to replace the ignition module on my pickup truck. While doing this I bought a can of terminal cleaner for electrical connections because the old module had melted all over the connecting wires. I got the bright idea to spray the inside of the card holder with the stuff, after all it was a piece of junk right? couldn’t hurt anything. I wrapped the camera in a napkin to keep the cleaner from getting all over everything and opened the memory card door and gave it a couple of quick shots and let it dry for 5 min. That did the trick. I could not believe it but it worked. All that expense and a simple 4 dollar can of terminal cleaner fixed the problem. I didn’t use the spray straw that came with the can as I didn’t want it to puddle inside the camera, all I wanted was for a light mist to hit the prongs down at the bottom of the holder. The name of the cleaner is CRC QD Electronic Cleaner. It comes in a black and red 11oz. spray can and can be bought at any AutoZone car parts store.
Thinking back I suppose if I had sprayed the CRC on the card cleaner, it would have worked just as well, as the card cleaner is nothing but a paper covered card that is supposed to wipe the prongs off.