After many years of reliable service my original Rio car player is now giving me the dreaded 'No hard disk found Contact support' error. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Here are the facts:

1) Either cable works with either set of hard drives in my spare Rio car player.

2) There is no visible problem with the IDE header.

3) I'm using version 2 beta 13 and have been for years now.

4) Here is the serial boot log:

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne
l.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg52 (rob@aphex) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315
(release)) #12 Tue Apr 1 18:51:41 BST 2003
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 10101862)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15024k/16M available (964k code, 20k reserved, 372k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea Universit
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )

SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 636f6972 'rioc'
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005480).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)

RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: no response (status = 0x80)
Probing primary interface...
hda: IJM,DJS@-:30, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IJM,DJS@-:30, 7935MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=16382/16/62
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3348
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:8) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:0b MAC 00:02:d6:22:06:46
Partition check:
hda: unknown partition table
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...ide0: unexpected interrupt, status=0x58, count=1
fs: unable to read superblock
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05


What should I try next?
Thanks in advance, Bill

Hm. CS4231A chip seems OK.

Double check the IDE cable connectors by squeezing them and trying again.

Be super sure about the ide header by trying to gently wiggle it while looking at it under magnification.

Failing that, try a new hard disk. Sometimes disks really do go bad.

I'd suspect a cold solder joint, it's about all there is left to consider. The fact that the player seems to find hda but can't even read its partition table would seem to imply one of the lines in the ide bus isn't working. Mark will certainly have a better idea than I would of the details here.

Try starting the player up while pushing down on the connector where the IDE cable plugs into the empeg main board. Also inspect the IDE header with a magnifying glass and see if you can see any cracks.

Matthew

Data bit 15 is floating high on the IDE bus. This is an IDE header issue (pin 18, or possibly pin 3), or maybe (low percentage) a bad cable.

Needs professional soldering skills to repair safely.

Cheers

Gah. Man, you are scary. How could you tell that from the boot log?

They don't call you "The Linux IDE Guy" for nothing.

Not that difficult to work out. You can tell from "hda: IJM,DJS@-:30, ATA DISK drive". It is an IBM drive.

I plugged in my drives from my spare player (30gb and 80gb fujitsu drives). I still get no hard disk found, although it comes up much much faster (almost instantaneous versus maybe a minute. Here's the boot log from that attempt:

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne
l.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg52 (rob@aphex) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315
(release)) #12 Tue Apr 1 18:51:41 BST 2003
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 10101862)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15024k/16M available (964k code, 20k reserved, 372k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea Universit
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 636f6972 'rioc'
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005580).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM
Probing primary interface...
hda: FTJHTRU MHL2300@T, ATA DISK drive
hdb: FTJHTRU MHV2080@T, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: FTJHTRU MHL2300@T, 7935MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=16382/16/62
hdb: FTJHTRU MHV2080@T, 7935MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=16382/16/62
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3348
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:8) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:0b MAC 00:02:d6:22:06:46
Partition check:
hda: unknown partition table
hdb: unknown partition table
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...03:05: rw=0, want=2, limit=0
dev 03:05 blksize=1024 blocknr=1 sector=2 size=1024 count=1
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

It is identifying both of the drives. With the first set of drives (a 30gb IBM Travelstar and a 30gb Fujitsu) it only identified one drive.

I don't have much for magnification lying around, but to the naked eye I can't see anything wrong with the header connections. I'll have to get a magnifying glass.

Now for the really depressing news. I went to try the two 30gb drives in the spare player and now I can't get it to take any power. It's just dead - the little red light on the motherboard is not going on. This happened before with this player, but when I gave up on it and came back later it was fine. So now I have two problems and zero working players. Help!!

Thanks, Bill

Okay, now it's pin 17 (or pin 4) that's bad. Definitely the IDE header (multiple pins), or faulty crimp connector on the drive cable.

OK, I started writing my last post before I saw mlord's post. Thank you very much for identifying the problem. So, now that I know that a professional soldering job is needed, how do I go about getting that? Can someone on this board do that for me?

And, by the way which one is pin 18 (or 3)? Where do you start counting from?

Now, the other problem...My spare player won't take power. Any suggestions there?

Thanks again,
Bill

Again I type too slow to keep the posts in order...

I'm pretty sure its not the cable b/c both cables with both sets of hard drives worked in the spare, at least until that stopped working too.

Bill

OK, Duh. RIght you are. I'm glad that was an easy one. I'm going to put the spare back together right now and stop messing around... How can I get the first one repaired?

I sent an email off to Stu. I'm in Colorado, by the way.

Thanks, Mark, for the quick diagnosis and help. I haven't been on this board for a while, but it's clear that it is still going strong thanks to helpful people like yourself and, of course, Tony. Impressive.

Cheers!

Bill

Eutronics (link on top of page)

had them do lots of work, including this, and it was done very professionally