streaming from camcorder sony dcr-hc42e to my windows 7 32bit laptop

[wfareed]

I have a sony dcr-hc42e camcorder with small tapes and i need to stream recorded tapes to my laptop and save it to my hdd
the problem is my laptop did not detect my camcorder at all , i pluged the usb cable and the cam is not detectable.
is there any solution to save video from tapes to laptop ?

[aedipuss]

the only way to transfer those tapes to the computer in full quality is to connect the cam and laptop using a firewire cable and port. on the cam it's called the DV port.

[wfareed]

aedipudd, even if my laptop can not even recognize my camcorder ???
i am saying so because connecting or disconnecting the camcorder to my laptop via USB port seem to do nothing , looks like it is not detectable at all , maybe it needs a driver or something, but i did a thorough search in the internet and i found no drivers to this camcorder!
so are you sure the Firewire cable will be able to transfer data from my tapes to my laptop ? and how can i know if my laptop has a firewire port or not , what does it look like ?
and thanks for your help

[aedipuss]

google firewire port. completely different and separate from usb.

[wfareed]

will you tell me , even if my camcorder seems to be undetectable , will it work on streaming to laptop using firewire cable ??

[TreeTops]

I have a Panasonic camcorder that is not recognized by USB. It only is recognized by the Firewire port.

[titigrom]

I have the same camcorder. USB Driver for WinXP are on the CD that came with the camcorder. I don't know if it works for Windows 7... And as aedipuss said Firewire port will give you the full quality stream of your tapes.
For a laptop, you need a mini Firewire cable (same plug each side). And with this cam, the transfer is only possible with the Sony cam deck. Then you have to get a soft that can do the stream from cam to computer. WinDV works great. Cheers