Can importing footage via firewire fry my camera port?

I was using my friend's Sony HDR-FX7 camera to transfer into FCP 5 using my G5 tower (dual 1.8 Ghz, OS X 10.3.9) but nothing would transfer or even play. The picture on the camera's view finder was frozen. I gave the camera back and my friend tried connecting the camera to her mac as well as others and they don't recognize firewire connection. She called sony and they said the port on the camera may be fried. How could this happen? I've used my Canon GL2 for years and never any problems. The worse part is when I connect my Canon GL2 to my system, my mac and FCP doesn't recognize a firewire connection.

I checked and my mac's firewire port works (tested with an external lacie drive) so does that mean both camera's ports got fried? I don't understand, I've edited for years and no problems. Is there a way the Sony HD camera screwed something up?

Any help would be much appreciated,
Thank you,
Doug.

G5 dual 1.8 GHz

It will only be the 4-pin firewire 400 port on the Sony camera that got 'fried', not your mac port. Sony camera's have a nasty reputation of going wrong and getting burnt out (although they have improved this on the newer models).

The camera your talking about fits nicely in the middle of the time period this is associated with - if you search Google for 'Sony firewire port fried' you will see what I am talking about. Only solution is to replace the port which can be pretty costly.

Ports can get fried on both cameras and computers.

One thing I would do is a cold shutdown and restart of you Mac, then retest your Canon. It is worth a try.