Sony Camcorder capturing via firewire problems

[ravenoak]

Prior to installing windows 2000, I captured via USB to my computer, with NO problems.
Upon installing this, my camcorder is doing something odd. I have tried MULTIPLE programs--Pixela ImageMixer 1.0 (which came with my camcorder), Adobe Premiere 6.0, uLead DVD Movie Factory 2.0, etc. All of them do this EXACT same problem.
I can play the video and it shows up on my screen. The minute I try and capture it, the picture goes away and never returns. Then the computer stops the playback on my camcorder and says that there was an error. That it couldn't find the camcorder.
I also tried via USB. Same error, same problem.
It's also a flip of the coin. 1/4 of the time, it actually works! It captures. With no rhyme or reason to it.

Sony claims that with the firewire connection, I don't need any drivers.
I downloaded patches for programs. There doesn't seem to be any drivers or patches for my camcorder.
I downloaded DirectX 9 because I was told it would help.
I tried with two different firewire cables.
And two different USB cables.
It doesn't pop up with a "detecting new hardware device" window or anything. I'm not sure if it should. I even tried with the S video cable. Nothing on it at all. My video card, which isn't supposed to work with Win98, did capture with 98, but now since Win 2000, I can't get anything to capture except on a flip of the coin. I noticed that in Pixela, if I hit record before the video starts playing, it will automatically have this problem I mentioned. If I just hit play, then record, (which misses capturing the first bit of the video) then I have a 50% of success.

Specs:
It's a Sony Digital8 DCR-TRV240
Windows 2000, 1.2 Gig CPU, 1 Gig DDR memory
80 Gig harddrive
ATI all in wonder 8500DV video/capture card
MSI K7N2 Delta-IOSR Motherboard
Pioneer PDR-A060 dvd writer/cd writer
Acer 50x cd-rom
(It's really a 2.4 gig cpu but my computer started running really hot for some odd ass reason so we down shifted it in the BIOS. Now it runs normal temp. which is odd because it has several internal fans, including one on the cpu, and it has a massive power supply and ventalation system on the case.)

Any ideas?

[sitlet]

try using DVIO. you can find it in the tools section to the left. all you do is load the program, hit play on the camcorder, then hit record on the software. dont use usb for capturing, it was just not meant to be. use firewire. and you dont need any special drivers or anything, just a capture software. although you might want to update the drivers for your firewire card in your computer.

[ravenoak]

My concern is that the uLead program and Adobe Premiere *are* capturing programs. Why should I have to use yet another different program for this error?
Should I not try to fix the error instead?
So, I don't need a capture program I would think.

Also, my firewire card is my capture card. I couldn't find any driver updates for my card. I could be blind though--I hate ATI's webpage.

Thanks
Raven