Thanks Trevor, it seems to be a cable problem. If I push the center connector down while booting up, it boots up without hd error messages. Unfortunately I don't have anything to reliably crimp with, nor glue to keep the cable seated once it is fixed. I'll see what I can do about getting it fixed tomorrow.

However when it comes up it shows 0 songs. I guess I'll deal with that when I get the cable problem fixed because it may still be related to that.

Thanks again.