So this weekend I went ahead and added an IBM 20GB disk to my mk2 and thought I would share the couple of hitches that I had while performing the upgrade.

1. Make sure you have the official empeg power supply handy, or one that is VERY close to it. I had left this one at work and had one that had worked just fine for months (13v @ 1000 mA). Unfortunately the addition of the second drive was just too much and caused much grief when attempting to spin up the second disk.

The empeg actually performed amazingly even though it didn't have enough power. The screen would blank on and then off during the disk spin up, but aside from that functioned properly.

2. Upgrade to 1.02 (or the latest version) on your primary disk prior to upgrading. (I happened to stiill have 1.01) During the upgrade process I installed 1.02 onto the new disk, as well as flash. Upon placing the old disk back in I ended up with a version mismatch of 1.01 on the disk and 1.02 in flash. It did not show the extra disk space in emplode, despite the kernel showing the new disk upon bootup until I upgraded to 1.02. Not sure if this was related to the mismatch or just the extra time that 1.02 gives disks to spin up.

3. Even though I was extremely careful removing the shock/drive bay the rubber feet seperated on one side from the metal bracket used to connect it to the chasis. Make sure you reattach these prior to reassembling the empeg.

4. Actually read all of the instructions in the FAQ. I had happily added the second disk as slave and re-assembled everything, only to find out that the disk upgrade kernel will wipe all attached drives. and had to take everything apart again.

On another note, anybody know what the deal is with the new handles that are coated with a different material? (Rob?) I know that it was being debated if end users would be permitted to do this on their own.