I posted a couple of months ago about getting occasional "W" next to the HD icon and the player would pause for several minutes at a time. If I pulled the unit out, more than not, it would reboot with the "failed to unmask IDE" message. If I let the unit sit for a while, it would inevitably start working again. If I plug it into AC, it appears to work just fine. (I ran it for several days on AC and never saw a single problem, but let's all remember you can't DISprove something, only prove that it hasn't happened yet... )

Recently I've been getting a LOT more of the "W-drive-icon" problems, and a couple of times in the last couple of days, when pulling the unit out of the car and re-seating it, getting the "No hard drive found, contact support" message. Again, though, it works fine when plugged into AC as far as I can tell.

This unit also had the problem a few months ago where one of the screws fell out of the car docking connector which caused it to not come out of the sled very easily at all. I did finally get it out without any major surgery, but it came out only with a lot of gentle-but-firm-and-persistent tugging and when it finally did come out, it jerked itself loose in quite a startling fashion.

I've popped the top of the case off (after the docking screw incident and recently with the "W" problems) and as far as I can tell from just visually looking over everything (I haven't taken the drive sled out because I'm worried about breaking that warranty seal) the IDE connectors are fine and the connectors from the docking sled all look good.

I'm NOT getting a battery icon when these problems happen in the car.

I've checked the FAQs for pretty much anything related and done whatever the FAQs have said to do and it's still having problems.

I bought it last year during the closeout sale on the empeg units so the 1-year warranty is getting close and I'd like to do something about it while it is still under warranty, if there is something that can be done about it.

Should my next move be to call support?