First post,
If you're the sort of person who had to struggle to figure out that "HOLD FUNC SET --> PRESS TRASH" meant hold func set and then QUICKLY press trash, or else you'd be staring at the system clock... then these instructions are for you, too.
If you've been trying hard to load CHDK through gloved hands and foggy lenses, then you're already at the end of your rope. But guess what, you're in luck. The page was just not worded very well for people who have to have everything worded perfectly right so they don't waste time being edge cases. Don't throw your camera into the nearest geological discontinuity. Here are the proper instructions.
I've struggled for some time to find the right way to get CHDK loaded on my Canon Powershot D10.
I'd just like to say that the pages here, if read carefully, would seem to dissuade the D10 owner from trying to use the method where you load CHDK via firmware update, enter the <alt> menu via the assignable button, and then "make bootable" from inside that menu. If you go to the page about making a card bootable , and skip everything under "Cameras made after 2010" and go to the section for "before 2011" (the powershot D10 is a 2009 model according to the information on this site), well all that text tells you you're left with is manually editing the card's master boot record yourself. That's not correct.
1. insert disk (write protect OFF)
2. [ This is optional: HDDLLF --> low level format (quick) ] This just gets rid of the MBR.
3. [(might be a windows 7 mounting quirk) remove and re-insert disk in the PC ]
4. command line (admin) --> diskpart --> list disk; select disk <#>; clean; create partition primary; format fs=fat quick
5. extract the contents of archive to the SD
Now, the user has two options. First, similar to the method for "cameras after 2010, using CHDK to make itself bootable", except that you have formatted the card as FAT16, NOT as FAT32:
6. load in the camera using play --> menu button --> "load firmware" (1.1.0.0)
7. press assignable button (<alt> key under CHDK) --> menu button --> miscellaneous --> SD --> make boot
The above method WILL work but NOT if you follow the page's instructions and format your card with your Powershot D10. That's because the D10 formats in FAT32 and won't boot from FAT32. So format it as above, first, in FAT (16) using your computer. I'm sure Mac's FAT formatting works just as fine.
However, there is another option (similar to the method for "cameras before 2011"):
6. edit the disk's LOGICAL drive and OVER-WRITE (not INSERT) "BOOTDISK" at 0x40 (sector 0)
7. remove the disk from the PC
HxD is a good tool for the above. Remember to make sure you're loading the disk's contents not as "read-only", that defeats the purpose. Considering this is much faster than navigating the CHDK menus to get the disk bootable, I'd say do this one, you can get several cards done much more quickly without even touching the camera.
8. re-insert disk into the camera (with write protect ON)
9. power on
The instructions as they're written on the page don't result in a success every time, but these two methods do. I know because I followed your instructions to the letter several times and messed around with various things all afternoon and evening until I found what was working and what wasn't.
