I have a Sony VAIO system and have been using my Sony PD-150 to load analog A/V into the system.

Recently I bought a Western Digital 120GB external firewire hard drive and connected it to the system. XP recognized it right away.

Then I plugged my PD-150 into the back of the hard drive (there's an extra firewire port on the drive) and it all worked hummingly. I used the PD-150 to transfer either DV from the camcorder or analog through the camcorder into the system, and could load my footage either onto the on-board D drive or the external G drive with no problem at all.

Then my friend Jack brought over his ADVC-100 to replace the camera as an AD converter, and things no longer worked.

Through trial and error, we found that the ADVC-100 conflicted with the hard drive. Without the drive connected, the ADVC-100 worked fine. With the drive connected, neither would work, no matter what ports were used.

We called Canopus tech support and they said this is now a recognized problem and they have not yet received an answer as to why, or a fix, from the factory in Japan.

Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, have you found a fix?

Matt Simek
Pacific Standard Television