I contacted Hugo and he gave me the go-ahead to open the player. The cable LOOKS fine (so did those backfiring sparkplugs, though ). I disconnected every connection on the IDE cable, carefully removing all that glue, cleaned up the cable of any excess glue lying around and then hooked it all back up. It hung at the "Building music databases..." screen for a long time, but, to my utter amazement, IT BOOTED! So, I went through a few tracks without any problems, checked out my playlists, etc., and everything seemed okay. Sadly, it wound up hanging again after a little while, just like before.

I'm going to ask SonicBlue to send me a replacement cable. Hopefully that'll solve the problems.

One more note I'd like to make: TONY-- AWESOME FAQ on how to take this thing apart!!! Very eloquently written--it even has a quick video on how the case cover comes off! The watchouts were terrific! Phenomenal work all around! Thanks! I know I couldn't have done it without your FAQ! (It's *got* to be good when the guys at Empeg refer you there!!!) Though, I thought doing a search on "opening case" would turn something up and it didn't. I settled on "case" and that worked.
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George