Getting the video camera to download

[Eireann]

Okay, now that my hard drive is okay, there's another issue.

I've already asked about this - when I plug the video camera into the USB port, my computer doesn't recognize it. Finally, a couple of nights ago, I plugged it into the firewire port. I bought a card a few months ago and installed it, with help from all of you.

Plugging it into firewire did absolutely nothing. There are two ports, so I tried the other one. Nothing.

I did find a driver on the Samsung website, and downloaded both versions of it. They both came in a .zip file. I unzipped each one, and tried installing them.

The same thing happened with both - a little message popped up saying that it was installing, but no matter how long I was on the computer, the message never went away. Hence, I can only assume that neither version of the driver has installed.

Advice?

[Duncan MacLeod]

First step in trouble shooting equipment... Use known good equipment.

Does the camera work on another computer? If so, that narrows down the problem to your computer. If it doesn't work on another computer or two, that narrows it down to the Camera.

Additionally, have you installed the drivers while the camera is unplugged from the computer? Sometimes drivers hang on install if the hardware it is trying to install is plugged in.

[Eireann]

I haven't tried it on another computer, so I don't know about that.

Yes, I tried installing both drivers with the camera unplugged. Still nothing.

[Eireann]

Is there a way I can check the firewire hardware to make sure it's working?

[Chromatix]

You would need another Firewire device to try it with. These days they're not very common outside video cameras, but it used to be used a lot for hard drives. So if you have any external hard drives, check if they have a Firewire port.

A good way to check if the Firewire card's drivers are installed, mind, is to look in the Network control panel. There should be a Firewire (or IEEE1394) network device. That's right, you can run a network over Firewire - for some reason. Anyway, if it isn't there, you're missing something for the Firewire card.

[Eireann]

No sign of the firewire card in the list of hardware. I think I'll go on a search for the driver.

[JoeGould1111]

If you're using Windows 7, I'd suggest running the install as Administrator if you can. (Right-click the install package and choose Run as Administrator.)

[Eireann]

It's doing the same thing:

USB Media Driver Install

Installing driver... Please wait...


And then it just doesn't install.

[Chromatix]

USB doesn't have anything to do with FireWire. Are you sure you have the right driver?

[Eireann]

Sorry, the driver install is an attempt to make the USB connection work, since FireWire is doing exactly nothing. I got the driver downloads off the Samsung site.

[Eireann]

I ran across this page with advice on what to do. Do you recommend it?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/m.../ee851685.aspx

[Chromatix]

No, that's for *very* old stuff that mostly predates PCI.

[TheSHAD0W]

You've been trying reinstalling the camera driver; have you tried installing/reinstalling the USB/Firewire driver?

[Eireann]

Oh, yes, I didn't mention that I got this camera second-hand, with no installation software. I had hoped installing the hardware would work, but it's done nothing. Last night, I tried finding the hardware on my computer - the computer shows no signs of it. When messing around, a window popped up telling me that the PCI Simple Communications Controller had failed to install.

I'm not sure what to do now.

[Eireann]

Just to update, I emailed Samsung here in this country, on the off chance that someone there speaks English well enough to reply to me (I once called them, and the guy did speak some English, but he sounded terrified to be talking to me, and as far as the software was concerned, I don't think he really cared).

I also emailed the guy who sold me the FireWire hardware, letting him know that it doesn't work. Maybe he'll be willing to replace it.