I just came to this old thread to comment on FireWire card selection for running the Coolscan 8000, which is how I found the thread in the first place. I had successfully connected two different 8000 units to a Windows 7 PC (using modified NikonScan drivers obtained through the post at sevenforums.com
Windows 7: Getting your Nikon Coolscan to work on W7 x64), using a PCI card with a VIA VT6306 Firewire chip. When that PC died, I built another Win 7 machine using a motherboard that didn't have PCI, so I tried a TI-based PCIe Firewire card (XIO2200A chip), based on the recommendation here to use Texas Instruments Firewire chips. While the 8000 was recognized using both NikonScan and Vuescan, I could not get a scan with either software using either of two 8000 machines. I purchased an inexpensive new VIA VT-6307-based generic PCIe card from a Chinese seller on eBay, and both scanners are now able to scan. In all cases, I simply installed the cards and the standard software with drivers (modified for Win 7 in the case of NikonScan). I didn't go looking for different FireWire drivers.
