gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Your PC should have an SD card slot. Use that and Windows File Explorer to copy your photos to the PC or an external drive. I put all my originals into a folder on an external drive and then copy that folder to my HD for editing.

riderxlx Loc: DFW area Texas

CaptainEd on the third page of the replies has what I think the problem is.
Windows USB cache will cause these kind of problems and the cache needs to be deleted. I have done this numerous times on my puters and others. My current DELL will drop the USB connection to the printer sometimes. I unplug it at the puter and power the puter off, when I power back up, most of the time it will work again. Later it will flake out again and then I go to Device Manager, the last listed devices is Universal Serial Bus controllers. Expand this and see the devices. My puter shows the Intel series stuff. What I look at is the Generic USB Hub, mine shows 2. USB Root Hub, mine shows 2 being the USB 2 and the USB Root Hub (USB 3.00.
I right click on these and choose Uninstall Device. When the mouse and keyboard USB is removed they stop working, this is Ok, I just power the puter off and back on. Windows rebuilds the USB devices on start up. This is how the cache is deleted. I noted the ones I deleted and then go back and deleted the others. then restart the puter and the USB port is now refreshed and working. Windows is stupid in this way so this is the fix. I am running Windows 10 Pro. Dell desktop. There are UTube videos on this too. Plus if you google this there is a lot of this too, it is a common Windows issue. Since your stuff works on the laptop and other devices this tells you it is not your camera but the PC.

lwhitlow

Thank you 😊

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Why not just purchase a reader - very inexpensive, fast and convenient. I have two I've used flawlessly for 7 years with my Canon 5D MIII and 3 other cameras.
From B & H: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1188852-REG/transcend_ts_rdf9k_all_in_one_usb_3_1_3_0.html/?c3api=3679%2Cbing%2C81638766845622%2C4585238367528178&msclkid=74380ee780b711e4ea1052bd78d72c3a
Mark

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

Damn those stinking cables

riderxlx Loc: DFW area Texas

I agree Mark;
I have a few and use them. Everyone should have a reader. I was addressing the USB issue on his puter which is a Windows common thing. I believe the reader will work fine for him. I have a Nikon L310 point'n shoot my son gave me and I have to use a card reader for it because the camera will not connect to any puter. I use it for quick shots and some video. Can't go wrong with a good reader.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Stop connecting your camera to download. Start using a card reader instead.

Your problem helps illustrate why it's a better idea to remove the memory card from the camera and use a card reader, instead of connecting the camera to the computer to download images.

Connecting the camera may work fine. But the connecting cables or the mini USB socket of the camera are vulnerable. Things can also get screwed up with a download applet on the computer if that becomes corrupted or there's an update that makes it incompatible. And if a download fails mid-stream, there's some risk to the images on the card, too. Those can become corrupted. (No matter how you download, always use "Copy" images instead of "Move" images. That leaves the original images on the mem card until certain the downloads are successful and safely backed up, only then format the card in the camera to "erase" the images).

The USB socket on many cameras is part of the main board. If that socket gets damaged or worn out from use, there's good chance the entire board will need to be replaced. Both the part and the labor to do that will be pricey. The memory card socket, on the other hand, is designed for frequent removal of the cards... And in many cameras it's a separate sub-assembly, cheaper and easier to replace if that's ever necessary.

Yes, I connect my cameras to my computer using the USB cable.... but not to download images. Only to synchronize their clocks prior to events where I'll be shooting with multiple cameras, which is much less often. On a few rare occasions I've also used the cable for tethered shooting. Either way, it's far less use of the cable and USB socket than using it to download images would require.

A bonus, downloading with a card reader is often faster than using the USB cable. Sometimes a whole lot faster! It depends upon the connectivity of the card reader and the camera. A5DIII will use USB2... and the built-in card readers of both my laptop and desktop computers transfer data 2X or 3X faster than that. An external card reader USB3 or other fast connection (if your computer has them) would handle the downloads a lot faster than that USB2 cable.

20+ years shooting digital I've always done downloads removing cards from the camera and using a card reader. I've never had a camera get damaged or worn out doing that. Out of many hundreds of such downloads... maybe even a thousand or more... I've had problems on exactly two occasions. One was a failed memory card (brand new). The other was when I had changed the connection of the card reader to the computer, routing it through a USB hub (in order to add something else). That caused some corrupt image files. It was an easy fix and nothing was lost because I always "copy" instead of "move" images. I now use built-in card readers that are even faster.

I also don't use anything more than my computer's operating system to "download" images. For downloading, a program like EOS Utility or Lightroom or whatever is simply unnecessary. When I insert a memory card into the reader, it shows up like another hard drive. I just use the OS and click to open the folder containing the image ("drive" letter > DCIM > 100EOS5D), select any one image, then press "ctrl A" to highlight them all, then drag and drop them all to a folder I've set up in advance on my computer to receive them (a left click dragging automatically uses "copy"... a right click drag opens a menu where that's one of the choices). This takes a lot longer to write or read about it here, than it does to do it (especially since I've set my computer to immediately open a browser window whenever I insert a memory card). This also eliminates a software automatically creating folders, renaming images, etc., which can sometimes cause problems.

I don't know if it's related, but many years ago I was told to "eject" memory cards suing the computer, prior to removing them, after download is complete. I think with old operating systems this was necessary. Maybe it's not now, but I still do it out of habit. It's as easy as a simple right-click on the drive name, a menu pops up and one choice is "eject", then the computer gives a "safe to remove device" notification.

Jim70 Loc: Delaware

I recently had this problem with my Nikon D7100. Turns out the USB cable was bad - new cable fixed it!

rcarol

If you choose to reinstall Windows 10, you can opt to retain your applications and data. You don't have to lose everything you've installed on your computer.

ronaldwrightdallas

just as support to the card reader option.
it is usually faster
a thousand years ago when I started with digital cameras, it was advised to never connect camera to computer for download purposes (don't remember why, I am getting older after all) so in many (somewhat less than 1000 years) I have never downloaded files from my camera.
card readers are fairly cheap - but get the fastest your computer can utilize (my latest is usbC)

CaptainEd

I understand being a bit nervous about removing drivers. Just not that anything connected to the usb ports (wireless keyboard and mouse, etc) will be temporarily disabled. In my case, the drivers were found and installed quickly and the mouse and keyboard were only "offline" for a few seconds. I had a wired keyboard on stand-by just in case.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I would never connect my camera to any computer in the first place, too risky!

Chris T Loc: from England across the pond to New England

L - something nobody's covered, here - you may want to try. How long is it since you updated Win 10? The latest version is 1803. If you're not running 1803, go to Win Update, and click on Update. Also, the EOS Utility is loaded (usually) from CDs - which are notorious for embedded glitches which can mess up your system, in time. I know - it's a pretty glamorous utility, is it not? … But, if you bought an earlier PC with 8.1 - for instance - and then decided to upgrade to Win 10 - the first thing it would do is DUMP all programs loaded from CD, and ALL programs downloaded from the Net, other than ones from Microsoft. Doesn't that tell you something? ... As already indicated by Alan and others - you don't need any utility to download pics from your camera. As soon as you plug the USB cord into the PC and switch on the camera, a module opens up, and asks what you want to do with the files. Follow that thru, and the PC does the rest. But, first - please be sure you have the latest version of Win 10 installed. Until you do, NOTHING will go, as planned. Unless, you have the Pro version (Win 10 Pro) - if you have that, all updates are downloaded as needed, but, if you don't - you have to manually download the Updates, yourself. Ok, L?

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

The Eject first thing was more an issue for Mac computers.

Bill P

Easy, fast and inexpensive. You will wonder why you haven't been doing this all along.