Digital Camcorder Firewire PC not working need help

Need help with connecting and getting to work a sony digital 8 camcorder to my pc

i have tried with 2 different sony camcorders, 2 differend firewire cables and 2 different pcs over the last year but havent gotten the pc to acknowledge the camcorder is connected

at one stage a while ago i did and it worked for a short time but went off randomly and stopped working until i rebooted but now it wont even recognise that i have anything plugged into the firewire at all

what could be causing this and why

any help is much appreciated

 

thanks for the suggestion but i should have mentioned

im fairly knowledgable about computers and have tried all the usual stuff such as re installing all the hardware and software involved with my problem

but it makes no difference i have done it several times with no change

 

well did u install the camera drivers? is the camera on?

 

well yes i installed the camera it does not come with any drivers it is auto recognised by windows xp according to all the manuals

and it did not come with any drivers only if you were using it for usb

and yes the camera is on and is set to the correct mode, i might not know what is wrong and why it isnt working but im not a complete dumb ass lol

thanks anyway though