Hi All

My long-suffering spouse bought me a couple of Transcend 32GB SSDs for Christmas as linked in the CF Empeg thread here.

I installed them yesterday and used Mark's Big Disk Builder as per the drive upgrade instructions in the FAQ (very comprehensive, thanks Tony). The builder worked fine, no problems that I could see so I installed V3A11 with Hijack slipstreamed downloaded from Mark's Big Disk page. So far so good. After installation, I updated Hijack to 503 and then tried to upload some files with Emplode. For some odd reason, Emplode couldn't see the Empeg on COM1, even though I'd been uploading Hijack with COM1 only a few minutes previously. No probs, I thought, I'll edit config.ini to reflect the static IP that I wanted on the 'peg which was the only reason that I wanted to use COM1 to connect anyway.

So, I ended up with an Empeg with V3A11 and Hijack 503 connected via Emplode on the IP I required. Great! Until I asked it to have some music on it.

I added just over a GB of files to Emplode and hit sync. I wandered off (as you do) and came back a bit later. The first thing I noticed was the message on the Empeg's display: "0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo" Not having seen that before, I opened my Terminal client (Tera Term) and watched the serial output (sorry, don't have a record). By this time, Emplode had popped up some warnings about files not being uploaded.

I killed the Emplode process as it seemed to be stuck and going nowhere and made the decision to re-build the disks (I'd also remembered a bug in A11 that used to cause me grief and was the reason that I wasn't running it prior to the new HDDs) with V2.0 final instead. I deleted the fids and did this, still using Mark's Big Disk builder, but using V2.0 Final without Hijack this time, adding 503 afterwards.

All went without a hitch and I was able to access COM1 again from within Emplode. Not sure what the problem with A11 and the COM access is, but never mind.

I tried uploading some songs again and got the same issues only worse. Log below.

Code:
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 553676
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 553678
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 553680
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 553682
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 553684
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 553686
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")


*****CUT TO SAVE SPACE (100s OF LINES)*****

Code:
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 33106
hdb: drive not ready for command
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 33106
hdb: drive not ready for command
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Restart code received
Starting player
Timezone: GMT
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
hdb: drive not ready for command
  player.cpp        : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
hdb: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
show_message("0000.-1 hdb: err: stat_timo")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 264
hdb: drive not ready for command
! tunedb_disk.cpp   :1274:Database size mismatch error.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
hdb: stat_timo: status=0xff
hdb: drive not ready for command


*****AT THIS POINT EMPLODE/EMPEG GOT STUCK AND REQUIRED A HARD RESET*****

Code:
empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg55-hijack-v503 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Thu Aug 14 22:07:32 EDT 2008
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102438) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15000k/16M available (996k code, 20k reserved, 364k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9bb84
Tuner: loopback=1, ID=-1
show_message("Hijack v503 by Mark Lord")
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004900).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized:  16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5f55
hda: TS32GSSD25-M, ATA DISK drive
hdb: TS32GSSD25-M, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: TS32GSSD25-M, 30560MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=62090/16/63
hdb: TS32GSSD25-M, 30560MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=62090/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:09:86
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
 hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
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: 4k init
empeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Timezone: GMT
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
kftpd: listening on port 21
khttpd: listening on port 80
  player.cpp        : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
Dead temp.sensor, status=0x00


I checked the Empeg and only the 1st layer of my playlists had been added but no files. The bizarre thing about all this is that I don't think either of the SSDs is faulty. The builder worked ok and the player software installed without any problems. I tried running smartctl, but error logging is not supported by these drives (so smartctl said).

Any clues, clever friends? Should I try the regular disk builders on the drives individually and run the stress tests? Would this be safe on SSDs?
_________________________
Steve