Intel Mac :: Can't Capture Video From DV Camera Via Firewire?

I'm tryin to transfer video from my Sony DV camera to my iMac, but neither iMovie not Adobe Premiere cannot recognise the device.  They both automatically select my iSight camera as the one and only video source. 

When I check the Firewire status in System Profiler I get the message: "Unable to list FireWire devices". 

I have tired restarting the software, unplugging the camera, unplugging the firewire cable, restarting my Mac but still no result. 

I spent a considerable amount of time Googling for solutions but have not come up with anything that helped.  I have also tried unplugging all other USB devices, restarting the machine, trying again, but still the same issue. 

The weird thing is that about a year ago I managed to capture video just fine from the camera into Premiere without any problems. 

The only thing that is different now, is that I have Windoes XP installed on my Mac as well. Could this be an issue, with XP "stealing" my firewire connection in some manner?  I'm not sure how this would be possible, but I suppose it could be... 

My iMac is a 21.5" with an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz processor.  4GB DDR3 Ram and Mac OS X 10.6.8 

iMovie is version 8.0.6 and Premiere is CS4. As I said, I had managed to capture video using the same equpiment about a year ago and the only difference now is that I also have a partition on my Mac with Windows XP (Service pack 3) on it. 

Of course, the cable itself could be faulty, but since it hasn't been used in over a year, I doubt that's the issue. I still wanna try anything else, before I buy a new cable. 

Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz processor.