hi there,

i am having a bit of trouble with a recently acquired empeg unit (mk1, blue faceplate, two 10gig drives.)

upon my taking custody, the player had ancient software, and supposedly had experienced a problem with one of the disks which had (again supposedly) been replaced but not properly configured.

i downloaded all the newest software (both the 1.02 beta and the 1.03 release candidate of both the emplode windows client and empeg unit image.)

i also got the most recent disk builder image.

i chose the consumer versions of all the software.

i began by installing the emplode software on my windows 2000 laptop (IBM T21) and hooked up the empeg via serial cable. i then seemingly successfully ran the builder program, but the unit displayed a message at the end to the effect that the 'drive(s)' were already properly built or some such. i am not sure if this is a good or bad message.

after that i (seemingly) successfully updated the software on the empeg unit itself to the 1.02 release build.

i then connected to the empeg player with the emplode app (via usb this time) to attempt synchronization.

i noticed that there were a couple of playlists (containing music) on the unit in addition to the default (fwiw, before i ran the build/update sequence, the player had been functioning and had lots of music on it from the previous owner, etc. - of course i expected to wipe this, but the seemingly persistent files and playlists seemed strange.)

i tried both adding new songs/playlists and also deleting some of the random ones that were left (both separately and together.)

each time i tried to sync, it successfully went through a few steps (including a little spinning synchronizing graphic on the player display), and then threw up this distressing error message:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The synchronisation process failed during stage 2:
Player error 0xfffffff8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(a google search does show a reference to this, but the context is super obscure and related to some hacking detail i didn't understand.)

i also tried updating to the newest 1.03RC software (both windows client and empeg unit sides) and connecting with each configuration through both the serial and usb ports just to try and rule out hardware.

the player seems able to play the few songs it has on it (though why they are there after now multiple attempts at reinstalling both the empeg software and running the builder software is a bit of a mystery to me.)

so my questions:
1. any idea what i am doing wrong in terms of synchronizing.

2. how can i ascertain the state of the 2 disks (should the builder program be rewiping them even though they may be 'built' already?)

3. is there some trouble shooting tool or mode that i am missing?

i read the articles on the bbs on upgrading to a second disk, etc but i cnanot really see what i am doing incorrectly.

tia.

::jory