Well here I go myself.....
(The answer is at the bottom, but the problem was the disk was 100% full)

1. connect to the player on com1 at 115200, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 parity, no handshaking (using hyperterminal under windoze)
2. hit Q to get a shell running bash
3. cd /
4. umount /drive0
5. mount -rw /dev/hda4 /drive0
6. fsdk /drive0
7. wait a LONG time
8. umount /drive0
9. pull power to reboot unit
10. watching debug output:
empeg-car 0.81 beta9 pre-release.
E #W tags.cpp 62 ( 7): Failed to read tags.
E #W player.cpp 196 ( 7): Static database is unavailable, building.
E tunedatabase.cpp 702 ( 7): Database count = 1671
E #W fidfile.cpp 252 ( 7): Failed to open file '/empeg/var/database' for prep
aration. errno=30
E #W tunedatabase.cpp 755 ( 7): Failed to prepare static tune database -30.
11. This doesn't look good..... But my "old" playlists are still good.
12. STILL!! can't sync with emplode under windows....
13. Part of te emplode sequence...
E player.cpp 697 ( 25): Saving static database.
E #W tunedatabase.cpp 767 ( 25): Failed to save static tune database.
E player.cpp 715 ( 25): Invalidating saved playlist.
E cache.h 52 ( 25): Caching is now enabled
E server.cpp 945 ( 25): REBUILD response=-2
E server.cpp 184 ( 25): Got an ACK: 2
E server.cpp 430 ( 25): MOUNT partition=0, mode=0
E server.cpp 461 ( 25): MOUNT0 result=0.
E server.cpp 472 ( 25): Drive 1 doesn't appear to be present.
E server.cpp 491 ( 25): MOUNT result=0
E server.cpp 184 ( 25): Got an ACK: 12
E server.cpp 565 ( 25): COMMAND command=0, param0=1 param1=0
\x19\x0dE server.cpp 184 ( 25): Got an ACK: 0
E server.cpp 202 ( 25): PING id 3a
E server.cpp 1198 ( 7): ReturnToSafeState called.

E #W fidfile.cpp 252 ( 7): Failed to open file '/empeg/var/tags' for preparat
ion. errno=30
E #W player.cpp 210 ( 7): Playlist database is unavailable, building.
E #W fidfile.cpp 252 ( 7): Failed to open file '/empeg/var/playlists' for pre
paration. errno=30
E #W tunedatabase.cpp 899 ( 7): Failed to prepare playlist database -30.
14. I poke around and it looks like the disk is FULL; a "mkdir /drive0/junk" said it had no room!!
15. I removed the last files in my /drive0/fids/ dir (ff0 and ff1)
(make sure the disk is in RW mode before removing any files)
umount /drive0
mount -n -o rw /dev/hda4 /drive0
16. Trying emplode now....
17. Finally!!!!!! I'm in; so the freaking disk was 100% full.


6GB, Blue, S/N 00272, Q 5001