Well my clumsy ass finally did it. I dropped my riocar. It was in a padded carrying case so no physical damage can be seen but it seems the hard drive got broken. When I apply power hijack boots and says it can't find the hard drive. I've contacted support, do you think they can give a repair estimate? Or if is only the hard drive that's broken, is it hard to replace it on my own (player is out of warranty)? I'm not worried about taking apart the player and putting in a new hard drive, but do I need to format with linux or something?

Let's hope there isn't much wrong with your player.

Swapping harddrives are not that hard.
Have a look at this http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Drive_Upgrade&file=index

TommyE

I'm sure David will tell you this (and authorize you to open it and check it out), but it's possible (likely even) that your IDE ribbon cable just got jarred loose...

Agreed. Either the cable or a jumper (on a two drive unit). Can you post a boot log?

Yep, very unlikely to have damaged the HDD imo, it'll be a loose cable almost certainly...

Hugo

Others who have dropped their players and gotten the "no hard disk" message have generally found the problem to be in the cabling, jumper, or perhaps the rubber shock mounts of the hard disk coming undone. Please click here for all the details.

I will investigate further tonight if I have time.

btw, what kind of carrying case? i've always wanted to drop my rio in its pelican 1200 from 2 stories up and see if theres any damage.... =) so i can be sure that its safe if it survives, and to get another case if not.

Why not put an old piece of electronics roughly the same size in its place and drop the case that way? I'm sure that would give you a pretty good idea, without risking your irreplaceable player.

Yes it was simply the ide cable, it was disconnected from the main board. I plugged it back in and I'm back in business. Thanks for the responses, I guess I would have found this out on my own with the FAQ but I thought it was totally F'd.