My (less than two years old!) Fujitsu 100GB drive seems to have died suddenly. I only dropped it once!

It seemed to run for two weeks after the drop with no problems, and was playing fine in the house. I unplugged the empeg, plugged it into the car and got the dreaded Hard Disk Not Found message.

I've followed the FAQ troubleshooting tips and I'm looking for advice on whether I should buy a new HD or if the empeg itself has something hosed with it. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Here's my HyperTerminal 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 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v464 (hijack@rtr.ca) (gcc version
2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Fri Oct 27 01:00:29 EDT 2006
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 40103200) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (988k code, 20k reserved, 364k 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 University Computer Society NET3.039
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)
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 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x99380
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
Could not find CS4231A (version=80) --> no visuals for Tuner/AUX.
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004e00).
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...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xdfcf
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xdfcf
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xdfcf
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xdfcf
(... many of these deleted ...)
Probing primary interface...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xdfcf
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xdfcf
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xdfcf
(... many of these deleted ...)
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x0249
smc_init couldn't find card
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...el panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

That's not the hard drive. There's something wrong with the hard drive connections. Either a bad cable/connectors (unlikely), or the IDE header issue that just about every player seems to get eventually.

The drive might be fine, might not. Just cannot tell until the connection problem is fixed (or try the drive in a PC or notebook or USB enclosure).

-ml

I busted out the Knoppix CD and USB enclosure and the drive does appear to be readable. It looks like I've been struck by the IDE Header problem since I have a 2 year old Eutronix replacement IDE cable. (I'm assuming the IDE cable is less likely to go bad suddenly.)

Thanks for the troubleshooting help. How do people w/o soldering skills fix this? I've checking w/Eutronix and I guess my other option is to post to craigslist and finding someone local to solder it. Any recommendations in the Boston area?

Thanks again,

Steve

A magnifying glass can go a long way as a diagnostic tool here..

...and it's on its way to Eutronix! Thanks for your help, Mark!

-Steve