I was able to switch down to 10baseT using the Media Type on the advanced tab of the NIC properties page in the Network settings (Win2K)... That was a mouthful. :)

Just started a new sync worth about 10GB. Getting loads of collisions during the transfer still. Again, just the computer and the empeg are currently on the network.

My USB transfer was still going when I got home. It should still have been going now, but it stopped two songs into "This is Hardcore" from Pulp. Needless to say, there were a few more albums left before the alphabetical list reached Z, as well as a meaty compilations folder yet to be started.

I was had been doing something in the foreground and noticed the empeg switch from synchronising to building its database. Emplode was frozen. The building finished and I noticed how many songs were online and managed to figure out where it had stopped. I had to reboot the computer to get Emplode to recognise the empeg again. Running it again without rebooting caused it not to find any hardware. I'm assuming instance of the USB driver must have died along with the app.

The database on the unit was never properly built/recorded, so every time I would cycle the power, it would take at least 60 seconds to get to a menu. Firing up emplode, allowing a sync and rebuild fixed that problem.

So now I'm trying to put all the missing files online using Ethernet again. I'll likely hit the sack ina few minutes and just let it run. I'll keep my fingers crossed while sleeping that everything will be cool when I wake up.

As an aside, I also had one of those remote failures mentioned in another thread. Right after turning on SHUFFLE while in Now and Next text mode the remote died. Nothing on it would work. Took out battery, put it back but nothing. Unplugged empeg, waited a sec, plugged back in and remote worked. Weird. Went through some menus and ended up turning on shuffle again while in Now and Next mode (that was an accident, I meant to go to a different display mode first). Problem with remote happened again. Dead. AFter pressing madly on a few keys, the player suddenly responded to some prev/next track presses. Then it once again stopped responding to the remote. And now that's where it stands, even after a couple of power-downs. I'll try a fresh battery tomorrow (after going out to buy one). So something else to keep my fingers crossed about.

At least the new drive cable seems to be working very well. :) Oh, and of course the music quality is excellent (LAME 3.90 encoded VBR files with slightly altered r3mix settings.). I hope 2.0 fixes the seeking problems with these VBR files however.

Bruno