Here are 2 PCMCIA cards that use the Texas Instruments 1394 chipset.
LaCie - PC Card FireWire 800 FireCard 400™ 1394a PCMCIA (Cardbus) adapter
Hope it helps resolve this problem and helps prevent future firewire issues.
The Ricoh R5C832 1394 chipset is terrible for recording and unfortunately used on several laptop brands, from gateway to lenovo.
Cheers, Nate