unbelievable!! It's working!!
I wanted to buy new camera, but 2 hits - and it's working again!
Many many thanks!

Thanks to this advice there's a little less landfill! The camera would just come up with a message advising me to switch it off and on again, I tried new batteries and still the same. After leaving it with the lense stuck out for about 4 months I was just about to bin it and thought I'd give it one last go. I tried reseting the camera and eventually the E:61:00 code appeared - popped 'Sony DSC-WA + E:61:00' in google and hey presto, two smacks of the base in the palm of my hand and it works again!!! Thanks again!

my camera wasn't focusing or allowing me to take pics and I smacked it multiple times from the bottom and top. It made a weird noise and would take pics, but they were blurry. Smacked it again and its working great

Thanks everybody. I was ready to toss my camera. Took a chance and yes - it worked. Son in Iraq will now get videos of his children. Thanks again!

haha just did this on a friend's dsc-w1; banging it on the bottom totally worked! thanks!

it wasn't working for me until my boss banged it on the table, and what do you know, it worked!!

banging helped me too, just throw it onto your hands and it works again! i didn´t believe this, but now it works perfect :-))))))))))

It works ! Had the same problem (error code, the lens would not retract = unusable camera) and I banged it on the base with my hand as described in the above posts and it works! Sony wanted 181$ at least to fix it! Thanks a lot!

I just banged on the base lightly and it worked like a charm. Had I sent it to Sony for repair, chances are they would have banged on it as well ... but for $300+. Thank you all.

I know it sounds wierd but it worked perfectly for me. I just banged it (lightly) on my palm a few times and it works perfectly now.