No, the player is not booting in car mode.. and I switched COM ports thinking a physical reconnect was in order. No go.

Its as if echo ro something in hyperterm is turned off. I was banging on the keyboard at one point and I got the reboots to stop.. as if the player responded to the letter 'Q' to enter the shell. But without a hyperterm display I cant do much so I unplugged and started over.