...and tell everyone what it was (he fixed it)...

Well, truthfully, I'm not entirely sure. I did learn one interesting thing, though -- on the 18GB Travelstar drive, it is possible to install the cable connector one pin to the left of its proper position. When you do this, the empeg will be completely dead--plug in the power and no LEDs light up, no screen display, no hard drive spinup -- it's like the power brick had been unplugged or something. As Tony said to me -- credit the engineers with making an idiot-proof design that doesn't fry a bunch of electronics when the connector is misaligned. The ironical thing about this is that the connector "looks" much better in the wrong position. When installed correctly, there is a gap between the left side of the cable connector and the hard drive connector, and the right side of the connector is so close to the leftmost pair of jumper pins that I don't see how you could put a jumper on those pins.

However, since there does seem to be some improvement in performance when the cable is connected properly, I'll leave it that way, even if it looks less aesthetically pleasing.

The only thing I can think of that brought the empeg back to life is, I pried the hot glue off the connectors, removed them and reseated them, and once I got the one on the hard drive aligned properly, the empeg booted right up. So even though the connectors were not loose, and in fact were glued in place, there was still a bad connection.

Be that as it may, I can tell you, these empeg things are tougher than one might think...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"