I have a MKII player which I've owned for almost three years and upgraded with a second drive 18 months ago and this morning the player boots up to the Hard Disk Not Found error. I read the FAQ and made the requisite visual inspections and didn't find much. I also connected to the console via HyperTerm and this is what I got:

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-v347 (root@ibbm) (gcc version 2.95
.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Sun Nov 23 12:29:03 EST 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 10101159)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15016k/16M available (980k 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 67706d65 'empg'
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
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 d0005180).
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...
hdb: HITACHI_DK23DA-30, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive
hdb: HITACHI_DK23DA-30, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DARA-212000, 11513MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=23392/16/63
hdb: HITACHI_DK23DA-30, 28615MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=58140/16/63
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:d7:22:04:8
7
Partition check:
hda: hda1 <hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
ide0: reset: success
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
ide0: reset: success
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x10
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:01 (hda), sector 0
> hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
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...attempt to access beyond end of device
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 would appear that my hard disks are being found but an area of my disk has been damaged. Is this accurate? Is there any way I can save my MP3 collection w/o having to reload?

Thank you in advance for any support.

Please read this FAQ.

I read through that and looked at both the cable and the solder joints and all apears okay. Plus, the boot log shows that it located both hard disks but that it's getting a read error some of the time. This, to me, would kind of indicate bad sectors on the disk - is this correct? Or would it still be a good idea to try a new cable?

I know my way around a Windows box (which I know doesn't hold much water around here ) but I'm completely at a loss when exposed to a linux system.

He says he did read the faq and that a visual inspection didn't find much. Which isn't saying much...

ISTR some folks not being able to see a problem with their cables but they didn't work anyway. That's probably the first thing to try.

This, to me, would kind of indicate bad sectors on the disk - is this correct?

Maybe. Or it could indicate an intermittent connection problem that has nothing to do with bad sectors.

Or would it still be a good idea to try a new cable?

Or squeezing the existing one..

Sorry. Knee-jerk.

Hey, I've done it before too, so no worries.

Thank you oh, long bearded wizened ones.

I'll try giving this one a sqeeze with some C Clamps and see what happens while I order a new cable.

Run a disk check?

I wouldn't do that until I was certain there wasn't a hardware-level problem.

I would because it doesn't look like it's having any problems seeing the disks. Anyhow, i'd give that a shot after you tighten down those crimps.

How does one run a disk check?

All that read_intr stuff is hardware error. An fsck at this point is not going to help.

I'll be in my corner.