I'm having trouble connecting my sony dcr-hc35e camera through firewire. help?

i have a sony handycam dcr-hc35e which is a miniDV camera. i've seen all there is to see on the internet about plugging or unplugging it, but with no use. i was also wondering if there is someone that has the model and would like to tell me how he/she managed to connect it through firewire. my screen says "DV IN" so it should be connected, but the software doesn't detect my camera. thanks in advance!