While awaiting the shipment of my player (see "Canada Customs" in the Main Index) I happened to follow this thread a bit. I put it out of my mind until I powered up my player and it stuck on the opening screen with the "empeg" logo and the penguin.

My first thoughts were: WHERE IS THAT THREAD?

It was comical reading through the thread:

- OK, just try re-imaging the unit
- ah, gee, my serial cable has cross-hatch pattern, not lines
- I *am* a geek with some null-serial adapters lying around...

So anyway, I plug in my own personal null-serial adapter and BANG-O the upgrade wizard starts to run.

So I continue reading the thread...while I see the progress bar progressing (heh) off to the side.

Then I read alear's post that "and it hangs on 'selecting pump device'" and a few seconds later THERE I AM LOOKING AT THE SAME THING.

It was like some sort of GRUESOME techie Cassandra complex whereby I was reading someone else's support history a few steps ahead of my own experience.

In short, the "empeg-car upgrade wizard" is looking at me with a "The upgrade failed. Error 'BADPUMP' occurred during stage 0x25" and I have read further down the thread to hear that alear is happy, having been given the OK to open the case and seat the hard-drive cable tighter.

To recap: what happened to alear is word for word what I have experienced. Here are some further details:

- I have Serial # 080000141
- I can hear the hard-drive spin up and the head thrash around a bit (obviously looking for boot-sector)
- the screen STAYS at the "empeg" and Linux-penguin logo
- I have seen nothing BUT the above
- I have a 12GB green MK2 unit

It is Friday night, I have half a pint in me already and planning on adding one or two more to drown my geek-toy-fetish-disappointment-delay woes while I away the OK to open this thing and re-seat the IDE cable myself.

So, take alear's case a step futher: I KNOW what is going on thanks to his experience and I KNOW exactly what the solution probably is (re-seat IDE cable) and I have to wait for someone at empeg to re-enter the office on Monday morning to give me the A-OK to pop open the case and do what needs to be done...to retain my warranty status.

The only thing I can do in the meantime is take odds on whether or not I could open the case BEFORE Monday and hope they read this message, believe me, and STILL honour my warranty.

Signed,

Ansty-geek-fetish-toy-boy-getting-toasted-in-meantime,

Ryan (Fogduck)

- -- ----- -- -
Queue # 57xx