Ok, Jemplode seems to have bit it again. I was in the middle of backing up all of my songs and the player locked. I rebooted it and nothing. So I hooked up the serial cable and here is what it is showing in hyperterminal ---
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empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004b00).
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: IBM-DJSA-230, ATA DISK
hdb: IBM-DJSA-230, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IBM-DJSA-230, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IBM-DJSA-230, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IBM-DJSA-230, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IBM-DJSA-230, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hdb: IBM-DJSA-230, 28615MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=58140/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:22:08:0
0
Partition check:
hdb:hdb: irq timeout: status=0xd0
ide0: reset timed-out, status=0xd4
hdb: status timeout: status=0xd0
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset timed-out, status=0xd4
hdb: status timeout: status=0xd0
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 0
hdb: drive not ready for command
unable to read partition table
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...VFS: Cannot open root device 03:05
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

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It looks like it is having hard drive problems. It is no longer under warranty. Should I go ahead and start checking for loose cables and/or bad solder points as described in the FAQ or does it look like something else is wrong??
TIA!!