I don't want to steal your thread but I have posted the same problem in the "upgrading" section of the forums and have gotten no response as of yet. The post can be found here.

I am in the same situation. I do not have the original cable, and have tried with three different cables on 4 different computers (2 linux, 1 vista, 1 xp) and the device isn't detected on any of them.

I'll be following this thread closely and hope to add my own input as I try to resolve the issue.