Ok, so I have a 60 GB Mark II empeg. Over the last few months I've had intermittent, but fixable problems. Sometimes when I would first put the player in the docking sled, I would get a message that said "Failed to unmask IDE" or "No Hard Disk Found - Please contact tech support". I would just remove it and redock it and everything would work fine. Lately, I have a different problem. Whenever I power the Empeg on, it has no memory of what the previous playlist was (i.e. it doesn't pick up where I left off). In fact, there is no playlist selected at all. It says -/- in the part of the display that usually shows what song you're on/how many songs total are in the playlist. So everytime I have to reselect my playlist. I usually play the entire contents of my empeg in shuffle mode, and it now takes a full 90 seconds or longer before it loads the playlist. It never used to take this long. Also, the whirring of the hard disk is plainly audible as it tries to load the playlist (which it successfully does, eventually).

I had an issue once before where I got the "No Hard Disk Found - contact support" message. This must have been about two years ago, now. Anyway, I sent it in to Rio support and they repaired it. I believe it was the common faulty IDE cable problem. I have no idea if that's related to my current problem, but in case it is I'm offering it as background info.

Anyway, I would appreciate any tips on how to troubleshoot this problem. I was actually considering upgrading both drives as I am just about out of room, but I don't want to do that if it sounds like the player might be on it's death bed. On the other hand, maybe the current hard drives are on their last legs and upgrading would fix the problem. I dunno. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Sounds like your disk may be dying. If you've gone through all of the FAQ entry for No Hard Disk found, I'd assume that's your problem. If you've got a spare notebook drive you can swap in to test it that'd be ideal. If not, PM me...maybe I can loan you a small one.

Have you checked the IDE header? Do you get the problem both in and out of the vehicle?

It's very likely to be the IDE header.

Mmmm.. maybe I can compile a static binary of "smartctl" to run on the player -- this would allow definitive diagnosis of hard drives without any guesswork.

Mmm...

Quote:
Mmmm.. maybe I can compile a static binary of "smartctl" to run on the player -- this would allow definitive diagnosis of hard drives without any guesswork.

That would be very cool.

Lest you ever think we take you and your many contributions for granted, we don't. (I remind myself of this daily as I listen to my empeg across the internet through your web interface.)

-jk