Turn On & Connection Problems

I have had a canon ZR60 digital miniDV camcorder for a while now. Over time (short time, unfortunatelly) the camcorder has developed a few very compromising problems. Hopefully, someone has experienced these and can provide advice...

1. The Camcorder, seemingly in a whim, will refuse to turn on properly. It gets frozen on the blue 'Canon' splash screen. Sometimes, if you push the red 'Record' button, it records the sound that the mic picks up but records the splash screen as ther image. While this is happening, however, none of the usual display info and sattings can be displayed and the cancorder appears to be 'hung'. The cancorcer has suffered no serious falls or water damage, so up to this point I have no plausible explination for this phenonenon. (It only happens when on vacation, never once at home)

2. My PC (AMS Athlon Barton 2800+ 2.2ghz, 1GB DDR, WinXP, Firewire 400) does not see or recognize my ZR60. When I plug in the firewire and turn the camera to the transfer and playback mode, the pug and play hardware detected pop-up does not appear. When I start a video caputure and editing program (Vegas, Pinnacle Studio 8,Ulead Video Studio) the software does not detedt the camcorder. I have also tried to use a different firewire card and cable, to no avail.

Thank You in advance for any help, usefull and otherwise.