First off, I love me Empeg. When it works. I can't describe the sinking feeling in my stomach as I saw “No Hard Disk Found” today. Just two weeks after I received my player I had to send it off to be repaired. I was told that the hard drive bit the big one. I would assume that when support put the new hard drive in that they would be certain to have a good cable installed. I just finished putting the majority of my data back into her. I’m not trying to complain. My Empeg brings me much joy. I just feel so disheartened when I have to go back to listening to the CD player. Or god forbid, the radio stations in my city. I guess I better wrap this up so I can send an email to support. sigh

Greetings!

Before you do that, get a boot log and post it. There may be a very simple explaination. I would assume that the cable was replaced if known bad, but they may not have seen a problem with the cable, or it (or a jumper on a dual disk model) might have bounced loose in shipment. Worth looking at...

I believe David fits new cables to all players that come in for service, whether they show signs of needing one or not.

Rob

That's comforting to know. Maybe when he changed my drives I got new cables. I haven't had any problems show up on the one I use, but I haven't even taken my other one out of the box yet.

as requested here is the log:


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 k
l.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg50 (mac@aphex.internal.empeg.com) (gcc versi
on 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #8 Fri Feb 8 18:48:15 GMT 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 10101989)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15024k/16M available (964k code, 20k reserved, 372k 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 2
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 '
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 0000
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005a00).
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...
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
ide0: unexpected interrupt, status=0x58, count=1
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: ÿ, 2088991MB w/32640kB Cache, CHS=65535/25
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:d7:22:07:c
5
Partition check:
hda:hda: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
hda: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: master: error (0x00?)
hda: set_geometry_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: set_geometry_intr: error=0xff { DriveStatusError BadCRC UncorrectableError
SectorIdNotFound TrackZeroNotFound AddrMarkNotFound }, CHS=65280/0/81, sector=0
hda: read_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x00 { }
hda: read_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x00 { }
hda: read_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x00 { }
ide0: reset: master: error (0x00?)
hda: set_geometry_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: set_geometry_intr: error=0xff { DriveStatusError BadCRC UncorrectableError
SectorIdNotFound TrackZeroNotFound AddrMarkNotFound }, CHS=65280/0/81, sector=0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector 0
unable to read partition table
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
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

I want her back in action. My girlfrind got upset with me because i was depressed about it over dinner. She swears that I'd leave her if it came between us.

I'm no expert, but I think your kernel needs to chill. Just tell it not to panic, to calm down, take deep breaths...

Mine does that sometimes too, but it usually works when I reboot it. Is yours also making that horrible clicking sound that makes you cringe?

Greetings!

Wow!

empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
hda: ÿ, ATA DISK drive
ide0: unexpected interrupt, status=0x58, count=1
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: ÿ, 2088991MB w/32640kB Cache, CHS=65535/25


And I thought I had a lot of hard drive space...

I would guess that either the hard drive controller was sick, the drive is toast or the cable is barely attached to the drive properly and sending gibberish. Since you are not even able to recognise the drive at this early stage, the errors you see below don't really matter.

Assuming it was working when it was shipped back, it sounds like there was something nasty in shipment, probably knocking a drive cable loose - but I never saw that kind of symptom for a loose cable before.

Contact support and see if they will let you check the connectors or look for anything fried. I assume you only have one drive in the unit?

It worked well for about a week. I checked the drive cable and everything it tight. I can hear the drive spinning up, but then i always get the hard drive not found crap. I know that they replaced the hard drive last time it was in for repair, i wonder if the controller was to blame the whole time.

Has anyone else had this much trouble from thier Empeg?
I havn't been rough with it in any way. Can i expect this for the life of my empeg?

Well, I can't answer all of your questions, but I can tell you this much - the empeg is much more stable, hardy and able to handle abuse than most machines or audio equipment I have played with. It is very much shockproof and has handled dropping and severe handling with a measure of grace. What you are seeing is far from the normal experience.

What kind of hard drive (brand / size) do you have in it? Has support gotten back to you yet?

I have the 12gig IBM drive.
They are rumored to be the better than the fugi's
(the band and the drive)

Support has gotten back to me, I spent them a copy of the boot log. Where i am in the world relative to them makes communication slow. I'm not exactly sure how big the time diffrence is but it seems that they get my email just about the time i crash (about 3am my time)
i am also having other gremlins in my car. Yesterday my amp took a dump on me. It seems that 2 of the four channels took an early retirement. So im going to have to go back on the ramen noodle diet until i can afford a new amp.
Oh well such is life. What's the latin phrase?....Se' La Vie

What's the latin phrase?....Se' La Vie

Erm...not to rub it in because you've already seem to have a streak of bad luck, but It's C'est la vie and it's French.

REALLY check that the cable is tight (just to be sure). I thought that my cable was tight, but it had a tiny gap... not at the drive - but on the board. At least it will give you something to do while you wait...

and it's French
sorry i was abused as a child. im sure ill sort it out one day

I received mine a few weeks ago and I received the same error. I opened it (warranty ?heh) and pushed the cable tighter onto the hard drive. It came up fine after that.