A quick precis for those who missed episodes one and two:

1 - We were broken into, the Empeg was taken from within the house
2 - The Empeg was recovered and detained for forensics by the police but the insurance company claim that they're not going to pay for it if it needs anything because it's not on my house policy because it's a car stereo.

So... The story continues.

We received a call from the police this morning. Apparently, the Empeg had gone missing from somewhere in the station. Jacqs, my girlfriend, happened to be in Solihull, where the police station is, today and called in. To my relief, they found it - it's only because they didn't know what it was that they couldn't find it (didn't make much sense to her either!).

So, I get the Empeg back this evening and, excepting the fact that there's aluminium dust all over it from the fingerprinting guys, guess what...

There's a rattle coming from inside it. My heart sank. Still, I decided to plug it into the car to see what happened. Since the guys at Empeg said that the first thing to go would be the screen, I was surprised to see Tux appear and wave at me. Of course, things never go well in the Barnes household and it wasn't long before the message "No hard disk found - contact support" appeared.

Bugger.

So, the insurers have agreed that they'll pay for the Empeg to be serviced and take it from there. In the meantime, I'm wondering if it's just the hard drive cable which has come loose and whether I should open it up or not.

Anyway... On with life.

Nicholas.

Congratulations on getting your baby back. I know how I'd feel if mine went missing. Hope it's nothing too serious.

Congrats on the recovery.
Contact support and they'll tell you whether or not to open it, but I'd say it's a good chance that's the problem. Of course if insurance is willing to pay and you don't feel good about servicing it yourself, by all means send it in. But, like I said, contact support first.

That's fantastic news that you got the empeg back. Even better is that the display comes up. Even if you send it back to SB, It's much better off. Maybe replacement of the HDD would be good anyway. Maybe Hugo could recommend it anyway?{hint}

Excellent news!

If it rattles when you shake it, rather than when you power up, it could either be a loose disk sled (the Mk1 shock supports pop off with monotonous regularity) or a loose cable. Either case is good news . The bad news is that on the Mk1, for either of these to happen, there is a good chance that it has had a hard knock. The good news in this case is that the VFD survived since you can get a display image! If you are out of warranty, then you should be able to open it and assess just what's wrong - not much mechanical skill needed here (screwdriver and patience). The bad news is that such an impact *might* have knackered the drive bearings. The good news is that the drives (if they are orignal spec) are rated at some 400g impact shock value, so you might be OK after all.

I would suspect you have something loose; if you can hear the drive spin up and hold speed without horrible coffee-grinder noises then there's a pretty good chance that your disk will have survived. Drop a line to Hugo and ask for advice, I'm sure he'll help.

Let us all know how it turns out - your timely reminder on insurance had me checking things here (NL) too - and I discovered that I have exactly the same problem of it falling between two domains of insurance

Remember that some brands of laptop disk drive will make a rattling noise if you shake them, and that's the normal operation of the drives. It even says so on the label of my drives: "Rattle noise is normal".

Remember that some brands of laptop disk drive will make a rattling noise if you shake them

Yes, but that is a very delicate, subdued rattle -- sort of like what you would hear if you put a pebble about one millimeter in size into a heavy coffee mug and shook it gently.

If it is a heavy rattle, it is probably (as Rob S. suggested) the drive cage loose from the rubber shock supports; otherwise it is very probably (I would estimate 80% likelihood) a drive cable disconnected either from the drive or from the motherboard.

tanstaafl.

And there's more...

Having been as busy as the proverbial blue-arsed fly recently, I haven't yet had a chance to contact the guys in Cambridge about getting my unit sorted. I had a few spare moments and so I decided to open the unit myself (by the way, if there's a prize for the design of this sort of thing, the Empeg should have won it - the inside was a work of art). The HDD cable had indeed come off, as had one of the shock mounts, so it must have had a fair whack. I plugged it all back together, screwed up the case and... low and behold... It all works.

Now, since the insurers are paying for a service, I'll still send the unit back. After all, there may well be a crack somewhere that I've missed. But, at least it's not all bad news.

Anyway, merry Christmas to you all and a happy new year.

Enjoy.

Nicholas.