WillD, yes you can do it, but it's more trouble than it's worth.

The empeg doesn't store its files as loose MP3s. Instead, it stores them in a special database format. This format is described here.

In order to do what you describe, you would need the following things:

- You would need to dismantle your player each time you wanted to load tunes on it, which is a rather big job.

- You would need to disconnect the drive cable, risking wear and tear on the most failure-prone parts of the player.

- Every time you open the player, you take the chance of damaging certain fragile components that are easy to break accidentally.

- You would need to buy a special adapter cable to connect the empeg's laptop-sized hard disk to your desktop PC.

- Your desktop PC would need to be running Linux so it could mount the Linux filesystems on the drive.

- You would need to use the MP3toFID utility (as described above) to convert your MP3s into the format that the empeg expects.

After all that is said and done, it's simply easier and faster to use Emplode or Jemplode, and use the player as it was intended to be used.

What is your objection to using Emplode, may I ask? Perhaps whatever problem you're running into is something that we have a solution to.