Well
I have done a full power down, uninstalled the firewire then let windows reinstall upon rebooting, and installed a trial version of Ulead Media studio pro 8. Media studio can't find my camcorder and Neo picked up yhe HC1 on one of five attempts.

If I ever get thia figured out I'll let you guys know.
I do appreciate the recommendations.

Brent

What about the cable
 

Brent, I've been pulling my hair out with my a1 for 3 months with ieee 1394 connection issues. bought 2 new 4pinx4pin cables from best buy and zeroed in on connection issues at the a1's dv terminal. I sent the cam to be repair. Sent back with message. "No problem, check cable". I bought a

Belkin IEEE 1394 FireWire Cable - 6'

at curcuit city. It works great now. It really was just the stupid cable in my case. I hope thats your issue too. best of luck

Sometimes, if I switch back and forth between the VCR position on the dial and the next position past VCR, (never use it , not sure even what it is) it'll work. The cam will be magically recognized by my computer. Some days I nmay need to rock it back and forth twice, but it will work.

I know it doesn't make sense that such a thing should have an impact, but....it does work on mine.

Thank you for the suggestions. I have purchased a new firewire cable and a VIA firewire card. My Sony HC1 is initialized every time but nada with my A1. I have read that I TI chipset firewire card will work with the A1. I do have an old TI firewire card but xp pro does not recognize the TI card. I have looked for TI drivers on the web...I found a "ubicore" driver but it crashed my system. I guess I will buy another TI card and try that.