Firewire glitch in camera

Hey all,

A buddy of mine had to borrow my camera to do a quick capture of some footage the other night...apparently his camera's firewire port is kaput. He has a dual 1.25 G4 and when hooked up to the computer, it will not pull it up even in the info panel. Any other device will work, but not his camera...it is an old SONY TRV something or other...digital 8 format, 1 megapix imager on it. Is this something that might be fixable or does his camera now have diewire?

Thank you for your help.

Brett