My guess would be the cable from your computer to the camcorder, when i got mine and first started i had the same problem. The cables they send with those things are crap, get a cable called Firewire (IEEE 1394) if your computer has a firewire port. It looks a little different from a usb port but similar, if you computer is newer it will probably have it. If not try usb 2.0 which is another type of cable. Try looking at walmart, circuit city, staples somewhere like that.