Importing mini-dv footage into FCP

My version of FCP is 10.4.6. I thought I tried a cable from the DV port on my XHA1 to thunderbolt on my laptop, but all I can find right now is the DV to USB cable. But still, FCP does not see the camera with this cable. I checked in Disk Utility and it sees my LaCie external disk, but not my XHA1 camera. (Just to test FCP's importing, I connected my Canon 5D Mark III and FCP sees it fine, but I can't get FCP to see my XHA1). In Quicktime I only see the laptop's eyesight camera as a choice.

I have an older iMac with both 400 and 800 firewire ports and a laptop with thunderbolt and usb ports. I tried multiple cables on the 400 and 800 firewire ports on the older iMac. On the laptop I used a 400 firewire cable with a 400 to 800 adapter which plugged into an 800 to thunderbolt adapter. But none of those worked. I'm wondering if there any kind of cassette machine that reads mini-dv tapes that would connect to a Mac that FCP would see?

I think you're right about my firewire port. What is the name of the cassette type player that you have that will play mini dv tapes. I've looked at B & H and on eBay and I haven't found anything. What make and model do you have and do you know where I could get one?

I'm curious if you could tell me the model of machine you have that will read mini-dv tapes that would connect to my MacBook Pro so I could import footage into FCP.

Awesome. Thank you very much!