Hope someone can shed some light on this as it's starting to send me potty.

The problem, as the title suggests, involves 3 pc's & 2 mini DV camcorders.

The computers:-

comp1 - Desktop running XP pro
comp2 - Desktop running vista home basic
comp3 - Acer laptop (brand new - with firewire built in) running vista home premium

The camcorders:-

Cam1 - Sony HC-37E
Cam2 - JVC GR-D70EK

On all 3 PC's the IEEE firewire device can be seen in device manager without any conflicts.

Now the frustrating bit.

The vista basic PC can see both the JVC & Sony camcorders.

The XP Pro PC will only recognise the JVC, not the Sony.

The vista premium laptop will not recognise either of the camcorders.

One thing I have noticed is that the firewire reported on all pc's, except for the laptop, is classed as Texas instruments (whereas the laptop reports RICOH).

I've read many stories in various forums regarding the poor performance of sony camcorders & firewire & am tempted to return it to the shop & swap it for another make (it's only 8 months old)

I thought I would ask here before I go down that route - any help much appreciated.

Anybody have any experience of this?

Thanks.

Sadly I can't be of any help whatsoever, your problems seem to conflict with every experience I've had. Well, apart for the Acer laptop, not very nice machines I'm afraid, I know a former Acer Engineer, he left having been asked to bodge stuff too many times.

But Vista to me has been a complete pain with it's 'it's my ball and you're not playing with it' approach to things that aren't Microsoft, rejected in favour of going back to XP Pro, yet yours works and your XP Pro doesn't!!

But I'm bound to ask, if at least one machine is able to see everything, why not network them? Or are they not in reasonable distance of each other?

Hi,

Networking them is not an option as the as the visat home basic machine belongs to my sister & lives at her house.

I think it's mighty strange that the brand new laptop will not work with any of them.

I've ordered a new firewire cable so will give that a go when it arrives.

Acer support have advised on doing an 'e-recovery - I may try that if the cable gives me no joy.

I'm surprised a 1 week old machine needs to have an e-recovery performed - but.....

I suppose it could also be a dodgy firewire port, however vista reports it as being ok.