I know this isn't a warranty issue since I've mucked about with the player innards, but I'd like to see if anyone has any advice on how I should proceed.

Today at lunch I noticed my Mk1 playback skipping. So I rebooted the player (pull out of dash and re-insert) and it wouldn't boot. Bring it back to the office, hook up hyperterminal, and I get:

Probing primary interface...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
hda: TOSHIBA MK4309MAT, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TOSHIBA MK6014MAP, ATA DISK drive
Registering drives...
ide0 at 0x040-0x047,0x078 on irq 7
ide1 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: TOSHIBA MK4309MAT, 4126MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=8944/15/63
hdc: TOSHIBA MK6014MAP, 5729MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=12416/15/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdc: hdc1 < hdc5 hdc6 > hdc2 hdc3 hdc4
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: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 8k inithda: read_intr: status=0x59DriveReady SeekC
omplete DataRequest Error hda: read_intr: error=0x01AddrMarkNotFound , LBAsect=6
88, sector=562hda: read_intr: status=0x59DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Err
or hda: read_intr: error=0x01AddrMarkNotFound , LBAsect=688, sector=562hda: irq
timeout: status=0xd0Busy ide0: reset: success
hda: irq timeout: status=0xd0Busy ide0: reset: success
hda: read_intr: status=0x59DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error hda: read_i
ntr: error=0x10SectorIdNotFound , LBAsect=688, sector=562end_request: I/O error,
dev 03:05 (hda), sector 562
Warning: unable to open an initial console.
hda: irq timeout: status=0xd0Busy ide0: reset: success

The "no drives found- retrying" went on for longer than it usually does.

During this entire time, strange noises were emanating from the primary disk drive. I did this with the player opened and the drives loosely tethered (I had already checked to see if there was anything physical inside the case) which could have caused the problem. I even tried swapping disk drive cables (using the secondary cable on the primary drive and leaving the secondary drive disconnected).

Plugging the secondary drive into the primary drive controller boots the player (although with an old version of the player software from when I first formatted the secondary drive).

So, does anyone have any advice to offer? Is there any chance I might ever be able to recover some of the fids on the primary disk drive, or am I going to be resigned to reloading my music/playlists all over again?

___________
Tony Fabris