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Recently I changed a friend's OS from a really virus filled windows 7 to Ubuntu ..but kept changing os's because lsusb wouldn't detect the camera.But after coming back to windows, the camera wasn't detected, though I must point out the device driver for the camera was never found.

The Sony 'technician' told me that that since the dev-manager of windows 7 couldn't detect the camera , regardless of whether the device driver was installed, the software change must have damaged the hardware.

I was wondering if there is any truth to it.

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  • possible duplicate of Can some software physically damage hardware?, Can software break hardware?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 5:16
  • @techie007 cool post but doesn't talk abotu streaming devices just stporage devices and the cpu in general ..though I could have overlooked something and some implication.
    – metric-space
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 5:28
  • In theory it's possible (if, say, the camera had some kind of writable firmware, for example, although that doesn't really qualify as hardware damage), but it's really, really, really unlikely. The hardware would have to be extremely poorly designed and such a thing would be newsworthy, and I've never heard of it happening with a webcam before. (Also, any firmware corruption is rather more likely to be caused by the infected Windows installation than Ubuntu.)
    – user55325
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 6:16
  • @user55325 well I would love any reason to blame windows..but apparently the webcam was working before the installation but here's the catch...apparently there was this virus that managed to take a picture of the owner while the owner was surfing through the web.ANy thoughts? and I have to admit, this was one laptop that gave me problems.
    – metric-space
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 8:13
  • Well, there's really no chance that just installing Ubuntu could damage a webcam. Did you happen to install a clean copy of Windows or use a recovery disk? I'm guessing it uses some kind of weird proprietary driver or something, which doesn't exist in the new install.
    – user55325
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 8:36

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The Sony 'technician' told me that that since the dev-manager of windows 7 couldn't detect the camera , irregardless of whether the device driver was installed, the software change must have damaged the hardware.

Simply put, no. This makes no sense.

If Windows 7 couldn't detect the camera at all, then either the camera is damaged, the port is damaged, the connection between the camera and the port is damaged, the USB port is disabled, or perhaps something else. So the technician can't even conclude that the camera is at fault.

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  • my thoughts exactly.But what if I narrow down the camera to an integrated one?
    – metric-space
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 8:07
  • @nerorevenge The hardware still could have failed on its own. And the problem could still be software, for example, the drivers for the USB controller not being properly installed. Software making hardware fail is very rare and cannot possibly be diagnosed just from that information.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Nov 9, 2013 at 8:30

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