Support should sell/give you a cable, if you can get ahold of them. The end of offical support is near, however. I would doubt that a connection that was bad enough to cause constant popping would be good enough to boot and not get a no hard drive found error.

Are you sure you're slidiing your player in all the way and locking it into the sled with the handle? Occasionally when I have a friend put my empeg in, they just let it slide in by itself, without pushing it in the last bit and closing the handle manually. This can lead to poping/thumping every time I go over a bump as the connections get severed and reconnected. This probably isn't your poblem, but I thought I'd mention it.

Matthew