Sony FX1 - crazy driver issues/ premier issues

[maxslomoff]

hello,
i'm looking for help with a horrible and complicated problem that seems to manifest in many ways...

basically, i can't get the sony fx1 camera to work properly with the computer, and if it shows up on the computer it doesn't seem to work with premier pro 1.5.1

either
1;the camera doesn't show up on the computer when connected - device manager reports nothing
1.a; the camera shows up as a 61883 device with an exclamation point.
2; device manager reports a sony dv camera under imaging devices - but under the drivers tab it says no drivers are installed for this device and after a few moments the noise gongs and the camera is removed from device manager
3;the camera shows up as an av/c tape device under sound video and game controlers
and if so...
4;when i start premier i get a "driver error" pop up window
5;when i try to capture the program reports capture device off line
6;when i try to capture the program freezes

the next crazy thing is that when i tried this on my regular system it didn't work, so i did a clean install of xp sp2 on a different drive and didn't install anything except premier. on this system the camera connected fine at first and for two days i was able to digitize. after that premier reported the driver error and this whole string of problems ensued as i've tried to fix it.

the bonus question is... WHY ON EARTH WOULD THE CAMERA BE INSTALLED AND WORKING FINE ONLY TO NOT WORK A FEW DAYS LATER WITH NO SYSTEM CHANGES?

thanks for any wisdom and advice you can share...
by the way, i found these two pages
http://forums.windrivers.com/archive/index.php/t-63455
http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?p=504817
and tried two patches that are available on the microsoft site for 1394 enumerating problems. they did not do the trick. neither does resetting the camera. and, i have never gotten the "data is invalid" error. my firewire card seems to be fine.

max
(running xp sp2, p4 2.8, 1 gig ram, 4 hard drives, asus mobo, dlink firewire card)