ok, the most peculiar thing...
i start my car w/ the empeg in the bay... it starts to play a song, and after 5 seconds, sputters then stops. i say wtf, so i pull it out and put it back in.... it gives me a "no hd found, contact support" screen. then i pull it out, wait 5 minutes, put it back in, and switch songs as soon as i can. it then plays the next 2 songs properly.....

on the 3rd song.... it plays the song... and then a part of it gets garbled, then goes back to normal.. i rewind it to the same part, and its plays back ok now... 20 seconds later, the same thing....

is it time to email david for support?

either the cable or the drive going bad. mine did that because one the the drives didn't have spacers under it.

i left it overnight to run.... and attached a serial cable to log what happens... heres what it did.

------------------------
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:06:08
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:06:09
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:06:10
hda: status error: status=0x58
hda: drive not ready for command
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x0c
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:06:11
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:06:12
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:06:13
...
...
...
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:08:09
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #6780 0:08:10
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 170:@@ S0
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:05: rw=0, want=2106931, limit=16569
dev 03:05 blksize=1024 blocknr=2106930 sector=4213860 size=1024 count=1
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:05: rw=0, want=2106916, limit=16569
dev 03:05 blksize=1024 blocknr=2106915 sector=4213830 size=1024 count=1
...
...
...
attempt to access beyond end of device
03:05: rw=0, want=2106917, limit=16569
dev 03:05 blksize=1024 blocknr=2106916 sector=4213832 size=1024 count=1
init(1): memory violation at pc=0xc00d87f4, lr=0xc0019730 (bad address=0x0200712
4, code 2)
pc : [<c00d87f4>] lr : [<c0019730>]
sp : c017bf38 ip : c017bef4 fp : c017bf84
r10: 00000002 r9 : c0fad060 r8 : 0000000c
r7 : 00000000 r6 : 02007120 r5 : bffffd9c r4 : bffffd84
r3 : 60000013 r2 : c00f61e4 r1 : 00000001 r0 : bffffd74
Flags: nZCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode SVC_32 Segment user
Control: C0FA917D Table: C0FA917D DAC: 00000015
Function entered at [<c00117ac>] from [<c0012098>]
r10 = BFFFFE98 r9 = 00000000 r8 = C017BFD4 r7 = FFFFFFFF
r6 = 20000010 r5 = 02007154 r4 = C00F4978 Function entered at [<c0012080>] fr
om [<c0009fd4>]
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 02007124
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 02007124
*pgd = c0fa7801, *pmd = c0fa7801, *pte = 00000000, *ppte = 00000000Internal erro
r: Oops: 2
CPU: 0
pc : [<c00d87f4>] lr : [<c0019730>]
sp : c017bf38 ip : c017bef4 fp : c017bf84
r10: 00000002 r9 : c0fad060 r8 : 0000000c
r7 : 00000000 r6 : 02007120 r5 : bffffd9c r4 : bffffd84
r3 : 60000013 r2 : c00f61e4 r1 : 00000001 r0 : bffffd74
Flags: nZCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode SVC_32 Segment user
Control: C0FA917D Table: C0FA917D DAC: 00000015
Process init (pid: 1, stackpage=c017b000)
Stack: c017bf20: c0019730 c00d87f4 60000013 ffffffff c0fad078
c0fac0e0 c017bf40: c017a000 c017bf98 02007154 c0011b7c 02007140 02007154 0000000
2 c00f4978 c017bf60: 02007154 20000010 ffffffff c017bfd4 00000000 bffffe98 c017b
f94 c017bf88 c017bf80: c0012098 c00117b8 00000000 c017bf98 c0009fd4 c001208c 000
0000a bffffda8 c017bfa0: 00000000 00000000 bffffda8 00000009 0202ed90 bffffdac 0
203d938 00000000 c017bfc0: bffffe98 bffffd84 bffffd88 bffffd78 02007140 02007154
20000010 ffffffff c017bfe0: c0009ad4 c011d6dc c00f475c c00f4760 c00f3fd8 c017c0
00 c000b64c c0009ae0 Backtrace: Function entered at [<c00117ac>] from [<c0012098
>]
r10 = BFFFFE98 r9 = 00000000 r8 = C017BFD4 r7 = FFFFFFFF
r6 = 20000010 r5 = 02007154 r4 = C00F4978 Function entered at [<c0012080>] fr
om [<c0009fd4>]
Code: ebfd034a e2440010 (e5961004) e1a035a1 e59f20cc

and the subsequent attempt to reboot:

------------------

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 kernel.

Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg51-hijack-v291 (root@tbird.localnet) (gcc ve
rsion 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Wed Jul 31 10:10:42 EDT 2002
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 30102411)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15076k/16M available (928k code, 20k reserved, 356k 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)
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 206f6972 'rio '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9a38c
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 d0005d80).
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...
Probing primary interface...
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:09:6
b
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...VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

If it is a Rio-branded player, then it is most likely just a bad cable.

yeah, it is rio branded. i've emailed you david at david@empeg.com (hope thats still the right one to send to. hope to hear from you soon.