After messing around with "no hard disk found" errors for a while (see this post), I finally got to upload some new tunes.
However, during the synch process, some weird, brief power surge shot down my WinXP machine, but leaving the empeg and my DOS machine running without a glitch. After rebooting the WinXP, emplode said the empeg may be unplugged. I pressed a button on the empeg (it was schowing "synchronizing") and it rebooted to the "no hard drive found" error. Now only the secondary drive boots, the primary drive is not even recognized.
Could the synch have killed the primary hard-drive? How could I find out? It won't even boot with the good hard drive as primary and the bad one as secondary...

This is the boot log for the original confirguration (30GB primary, 80GB secondary):

Probing primary interface...
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, 76319MB w/7884kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
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:d7:22:06:5
a
Partition check:
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).
Timezone: /usr/share/zoneinfo
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...

This is the log with only the 80GB drive

Probing primary interface...
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IC25N080ATMR04-0, 76319MB w/7884kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
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:d7:22:06:5
a
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Timezone: /usr/share/zoneinfo
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...•Ô•j½Õ¹Ñ•‘�ɽ½Ñ�¡•áÑÉ�™¥±•ÍåÍÑ•µ¥�É•…‘½¹±å¹)5ÿchang
e_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 6
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Timezone: /usr/share/zoneinfo/CST6CDT
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Abnormal player termination
Player received SIGINT, user interruption
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
empeg:/empeg/bin#

...and the log from the reversed case (80GB primary, 30GB secondary)

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:d7:22:06:5
a
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Timezone: /usr/share/zoneinfo
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...•Ô•…¹¹½Ñ�½Á•¹�ɽ½Ñ�‘•Ù¥�•�ÁÍéÁÕ)5ÿKernel panic: VFS
: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

Does the drive even spin up? From the look of it, I am wondering if that power spike killed off the drive.

I've now found out that the drive is not even spinning up. It tries twice and then remains silent.

Ensure that the other drive is disconnected when testing for basic spin-up!

Yes, the other drive is completely disconnected. I can hear a sequence of soft clicks that is repeated once and then the drive is silent. Could such a minor incident really have completely fried my drive? And if so, I guess there's no way of fixing it?

Have you tried connecting the drive to a desktop pc with a suitable adapter? Or even in a laptop to further test this? If it can be seen on your desktop, I'd try and format it and try it again in the empeg.

No. I used to have such an adapter, but sold it along with my hacked i-opener at the time. Now I wish I hadn't.

Were you synching over USB or ethernet?

It sounds like your primary master disk is a dead duck, bin it and get another one. If it clicks (the heads pulling in) and doesn't spin up, either the motor, the bearings, or the drive motor power circuitry has failed. Is the drive a Fujitsu? A lot of these failed in this way. You may be able to get an exchange drive from your national Fujitsu distributor.

The only other thing it might be is a loose jumper on the drive, but no jumper usually means Master drive anyway, so I doubt that's the problem. This actually sounds like you have the typical "off by one" row or column IDE cable re-connection problem, but since you say the disk was working correctly prior to this, that can't be the case.

I have no idea how a "power surge" could occur without knackering everything, but it is unlikely to have caused the death of the drive. Otherwise, the empeg or the second drive would have died with it. It's likely the drive motor bearings seized solid and the motor went short circuit drawing a high stall current on the 12V power line. The empeg would have survived (self re-setting fuses). Did you notice any smells like burning?

USB is supposed to be isolated with common earth, so I doubt the PC fried the empeg.

The emepg will not boot on what was your slave drive, you would need to either do major surgery (unwise) or re-format with the Drive Prep utility. This is something you have to do with the drive set up as master. See the FAQ.

I would remove both drives. Re-install only the 30G. Make SURE that you have got the cable correctly positioned on both the main board and the drive. Power on the empeg and observe what it says on the screen and also in the serial log. You should use the connector on the end of the cable for the drive, not the middle one, to ensure the drive will function in case the cable is a faulty one (pink stripe with black connectors). You should verify the cble is good by seeing if the other drive powers and spins up on the same cable connector: if not, the cable either needs crimping or replacing. You did say the Slave drive powered up, and I am assuming you mean it did this on the end connector of the cable which would mean it's OK. If you need to re-crimp the cable, read the FAQ.

Thanks for your long reply!

Were you synching over USB or ethernet?

Ethernet

It sounds like your primary master disk is a dead duck, bin it and get another one.

I was afraid you'd say that.

If it clicks (the heads pulling in) and doesn't spin up,

that's exactly what it sounds like!

Is the drive a Fujitsu?

No, it's the original IBM; travelstar that came with the unit.

Did you notice any smells like burning?

No, nothing out of the ordinary. After I pressed the button, it seemed to boot just fine, but then I got the error message. No other warnings.

I would remove both drives. Re-install only the 30G. Make SURE that you have got the cable correctly positioned on both the main board and the drive. Power on the empeg and observe what it says on the screen and also in the serial log. You should use the connector on the end of the cable for the drive, not the middle one, to ensure the drive will function in case the cable is a faulty one (pink stripe with black connectors).

Did it exactly as you wrote it and the log is the same as the one I posted above.

You should verify the cble is good by seeing if the other drive powers and spins up on the same cable connector:

I did, it does.

Thanks again for all your help. Seems like I need to upload most of my tunes from scratch and then get a new drive.

Before assuming the drive is bad, make absolutely sure that your disk drive problem isn't one of the other things in the FAQ. There is a long list of possible causes there, be sure to carefully check each and every one of them. Go through the list methodically and don't just assume "oh that can't be the problem."

One other recommendation is that I have seen that "percussive maintenance" on a laptop hard drive can sometimes "unstick" it.

Thanks! I went through the FAQ as carefully as I could. One more time after reading your post. By now I have repeatedly booted the empeg from the end connector of the IDE cable with the secondary drive, but never with the old primary drive. I can hear it clicking in the drive but it doesn't spin up. If I simply replace the drive, the secondary drive spins up just fine at the same location. I think that is fairly unambiguous and neither a cable or connector can be responsible for repeatedly one drive spinning up, while the other fails.
Or is there something in this logic I missed?

One other recommendation is that I have seen that "percussive maintenance" on a laptop hard drive can sometimes "unstick" it.
Yes, I've tried that (carefully) to no avail. I'll try it a little harder now

Another good one is to put the drive in the fridge for an hour to get it really cool and then try again.

Both IBM Travelstars (same one I have in Erik that just recently died) and Fujitsus suffer from the "Click of Death", something caused by a semiconductor failure on the drive controller.

Another good one is to put the drive in the fridge for an hour to get it really cool and then try again.

Tried that just now. Didn't work. But I had taken the drive out of the bay for that and now noticed that when the clicks occurred, the drive was moving rather vigorously in my hand.

It's shot, I think you can bin it. Try IBM to see what their warranty covers.

Too bad. Is there anything I can do to avoid such mishaps in the future? What should I do (beyond what is stated in the FAQ) if a synch gets interrupted by a system crash and the empeg doesn't get out of the synch loop?

Too bad. Is there anything I can do to avoid such mishaps in the future? What should I do (beyond what is stated in the FAQ) if a synch gets interrupted by a system crash and the empeg doesn't get out of the synch loop?

Get a power regulator. The failed sync didn't kill your drive.

Peter

I'm going to back up what Peter just said: There's nothing that software or windows or synching can do to break the disk drive hardware. Something else did it, something physical.

As a last ditch effort you can try running the builder on that drive, that's the program that reformats it and puts the partitions onto it fresh. If that doesn't work, then it's definitely a hardware problem and completely unrelated to the synch error.

I'm not sure what the nature of the "brief power surge" that you described was, but that's the sort of thing that could cause trouble if the drive were being accessed at the time of the spike.

If that doesn't work

If the disk won't spin up, then it won't work. The builder's only any good if you've lost just the partition/filesystem information.

I'm not sure what the nature of the "brief power surge" that you described was, but that's the sort of thing that could cause trouble if the drive were being accessed at the time of the spike.

Here at our university, we have a pretty dodgy power grid. I have a measuring device (mechanical) and I can see a brief spike on my monitor every time someone switches something on or off on the grid (not bad for my measurements, as the spikes are too fast for what concerns me). Sometimes, my speakers on the XP machine make audible noises (clicks) and sometimes, these spikes shoot my XP machine down (like this time). I have switched power supplies this morning and since then no more shoot-downs. The empeg and my DOS measuring box never had any problems ever, neither does anybody else in the department.
So maybe just some weird, stupid coincidence?

Hi guys.

Would installing a UPS help with bjoern's power grid problems?

Probably, but it seems to work with the new power supply. The question is, shouldn't the power supply for the empeg have protected the empeg?

shouldn't the power supply for the empeg have protected the empeg?

Not if it was connected by a wire to the PC (USB or Ethernet), and the PC had a power spike problem. At that point you've got a connected loop to ground and the juice is going to try to travel through that wire and through the empeg to reach ground. Or perhaps the spike went the other way around, trying to travel through the empeg to the PC's ground.

We're not saying that your power spike "for sure" caused the disk drive to fail. It could be any number of other problems, including a drive that was simply ready to fail and chose a moment of bad timing to do so.

You mentioned it was an IBM drive. Did it have the standoffs? It could have been something as simple as that.

Not if it was connected by a wire to the PC (USB or Ethernet), and the PC had a power spike problem.

Oh I see. Does the network (not a direct computer to empeg ethernet connection) count, too?

You mentioned it was an IBM drive. Did it have the standoffs? It could have been something as simple as that.

It was the original drive the unit came with and had the standoffs.

including a drive that was simply ready to fail and chose a moment of bad timing to do so.

From what you guys say and I can see here, this is more and more what it seems to be. Just a freak coincidence. I'm sure the extreme cobbelstone ride last weekend wasn't conducive to long HDD life either, even though there was no apparent immediate effect.

Something like heat will kill a drive quicker than a cobblestone ride would.

I don't recommend this, but...

When the drive on my notebook died, I opened the drive up while holding my breath and spun the spindle manually (inserted allen wrench on spindle hub and turned) to loosen it. Then, I popped the drive in my PC using an adapter but only connected it as the interface was looking for attached drives. If I plugged it in prior, it wouldn't have enough juice to spin the drive again. I was able to run the drive for 20 minute intervals before it would get too hot and wouldn't spin again.

I only opened the drive that one time.

Again, I don't recommend this, but it was a last resort to salvage data.