Desperate...Premiere not recognizing any video

Question

Hi everyone!  I'm obviously very desperate if I'm posting to a forum for help. 
The problem is my clips won't show in the timeline. When I drag and drop the video file, every single thing I've read online states that it should AUTOMATICALLY separate my video into clips for editing, and an audio track. It should read "Video 1", "Video 2," "Audio 1", etc. In the default setting, before a video is added to the timeline, it reads "Narration" and "Soundtrack." But, as I said, when I drag and drop a video it is supposed to automatically change. Even YouTube tutorials have shown this.
Well...mine doesn't.
When I drag and drop a video, not only does it NOT separate the video and audio, but it doesn't even separate it into clips. The words "Narration" and "Soundtrack" remain on the left side, where it's supposed to read "video" and "audio." So it's as if the program is not recognizing my video file.
Fine, so I tried another video file. One of those sample ones that were already on the computer. No dice, it still did the same thing.
So I'm at an impasse. No help sites or anything I've found have addressed the problem of the program just NOT WORKING like it's supposed to! And I know exactly what it's supposed to look like, because it's not that dissimilar from Windows Movie Maker which I have used before.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

It's not from a camcorder, it's an .avi file directly from my hard drive.  Saved on my desktop, no less.
Two things here:
AVI is but a wrapper, and so very much can be inside that wrapper. See this ARTICLE for some background, and also tips on how to peek inside that wrapper.
Second, I would not use the Desktop for your Assets. It is basically a special folder and one with special properties. Often, PrE (and many other programs) will have difficulty accessing the Desktop folder, due to those special properties. Just create a New Folder (or use the My Documents>My Video folder), and Move your AVI file(s) to that. This should be done, with PrE closed. When you Open that Project back up, PrE will ask you, "Where is file _____.avi?" From the Finder, just navigate to that New Folder, or to the My Videos folder, and choose that "missing" file.
This might also be a good point to talk a bit about what a Project file (PREL file) really is. This ARTICLE will give you some background. It will also explain why PrE asked "Where is file ____.avi?" once you Moved it.
Good luck, and for a very good starter set of articles, I strongly recommend Steve Grisetti's Basic Training Series at Muvipix. To go beyond those articles, he has some great books on PrE, also at Muvipix.
Good luck,
Hunt