help with camcorder

[preet]

Hi.
my friend has a sony camcorder, which i took for tranfering the contents. the cam has a firewire port and also the cable...which has a firewire connector which is attached the the can and a usb connector which i connected to my pc. well to ny great surprise windows(xp) never detected the device.

aby help.

[pentachris]

As best I can read your post...

Either the camera is connected via firewire to something you call "the can" which is in turn connected via USB to your PC (in which case I'll need to know what "the can" is)

OR

when you wrote "can" you meant "cam" (in which case I don't understand your configuration - there's nothing that plugs in firewire on one side and USB on the other).

Could you please clarify? Also, what version of Windows are you running?

[preet]

Hi.
sorry for the errors.
well infact "can" should be "cam"
OS am using using is xp pro sp2.
ask my querry again.
the camcorder has a 4 pin firewire port. and we have the cable which has a amle firewire connector on one end, and a male usb connector. so i connected the firewire connector to the camcorder and the usb connector to my pc usb port. but the computer never detected the device.
thanks.

[azzey]

I've never heard of a cable that is USB and firewire...

Have you tried restarting?

[preet]

ok, i am really mixing everything. the camcorder has a small slot that resembles the 4pin firewire slot, but it has the mark indicating that is usb cable. so i think its not a firewire but a usb cable.

ya i started the pc but nothing.

[pentachris]

I've never heard of a cable that is USB and firewire...

Such a creature doesn't exist. As I said, and tried to get clarified:

I don't understand your configuration - there's nothing that plugs in firewire on one side and USB on the other...

But I checked just to be sure:

"Although a Firewire to USB adapter does not exist, and cannot exist because of differences in the two technologies..." (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-firewire-to-usb-adapter.htm)

Here's your typical firewire cable. (http://www.research.att.com/~suresh/blog/files/firewire_cable_6_4-3.jpg)

The USB cable used on camcorders uses the mini connector something like this. (http://www.123macmini.com/news/images/usb.jpg)

Which one do you have?

[pentachris]

so i think its not a firewire but a usb cable.

I was posting when you added this. Yes, it's USB mini. I think you'll need the disc that came with the camcorder for it to recognize it via USB.