Canon Powershot SD600 Lens Error

Normally, I'm a pretty prolific picture-taker. Last year, I spent a week in Japan and came home with about a thousand pictures. So, you can imagine my frustration when my camera crapped out this summer. I have the Canon Powershot SD600, and it shut down with the lens extended as I was about to snap my 18th straight "art shot" in the hills surrounding Cloverdale, CA. I tried powering the camera back on, only to get an error message: "lens error, restart camera." Sadly, there is no way to restart the camera. A quick search gave my this suggestion:

all u gotta do it turn on the camera n quickly try knock the lens back in the camera while it is on....dunt break the lens ....so dont knock it to hard. -MAMA

Brilliant in its simplicity, but ineffective. I pretty much wrote the camera off, sure that the error was fatal. But, being the cheap bastard that I am, I held onto the camera, hoping against hope that I could find some other solution.

Well, tonight the heavens opened up, and more diligent internetting provided another option: Total disassembly. I cracked the camera open like a salty oyster, spun some gears, slapped it back together and... voila! I have a working camera again, and it only cost me $3 for the precision screwdriver set I should have had all along.

While I don't generally post any of my pictures to this site, I'm sure the one person reading this post (my dad) will be happy to know that he can expect more pictures flowing into his inbox in the near future. Three cheers for the internet, solver of all life's problems!