I was one of the last ones to purchase an MKIIa and it’s about a month out of warranty. I've always treated my MKIIa with care and never handled it roughly. However, now I'm in need of ANOTHER HD. The first one went bad about 6 months ago and I sent it to David who tuned it around in a little more that a week. That was amazing to me since I live in the USA, an ocean away.

Anyway, I was in a friend’s car and had the Rio hooked into the cigarette lighter and the cassette player. The cigarette adapter came loose and powered the Empeg on and off rapidly a few times. Then dead Tux came up. Now all I hear are a few clicks when the played boots and I do NOT hear the drive spin-up.

In the old days I had a 486 PC I could bump while booting to make the HD spin up. I have a feeling the 20 Gig drive in the Empeg just needs some kind of "bump" or something to get it to spin-up.

Anyone ever have any luck taking apart a laptop HD and getting it to spin-up?

I am rather handy and can handle most mechanical and electrical tasks.

If this HD is like my last one it is an IBM Travistar 20 Gig (haven’t taken it apart yet).

The last HD did exactly the same thing when it went bad. Like I mentioned I sent it to David, replaced the cable and there are not cold solder joints. I have no doubt the HD is really bad. Maybe something is wrong with my Empeg that is burning up HD's????

THANKS!

Don't open it unless you've got a clean room handy. You'll get dust and other crud inside it and it will get damaged. Hard disks are made in clean rooms where the air is filtered for a reason. The heads are incredibly close to the surface of the disc and a speck of dust can cause untold amounts of damage.

I don't think I've ever heard of a case of sticktion in such a new drive.

You could just be unlucky and got a dud hard disk again?

- Trevor

No, I don't have a clean room however I'm kind of at the point where, "hey its broke, I sure can't hurt it any worse."

I do have back-ups however I would like to get the "latest" off the Empeg before I get another HD.

I am starting to wonder about putting a HD in a device like this.

Ah okay. I thought you were trying to fix it and then continue to use it.
I guess you could try and open it. The bits inside are going to be very small though as it's a laptop drive.
Some people on other hard disks have tried putting them into the freezer inside a bag and cooling it for a few hours. Apparently it does sometimes make a drive work long enough to get the data off it. Make sure the drive doesn't get wet though.

- Trevor

I will try the freezer trick, thanks.

I need all the tips I can get.

If I get it going I will probaly see how long it lasts.

If one more HD goes bad I'm selling. Kind of feel like selling now and waiting for Pearl.

if you decide to sell let me know. I'm
looking for an empeg. HD or no HD is
fine with me.

good luck

I don't think it's anything specific to the empeg itself as nearly all of the HD problems are related to bad cables or a bad solder joint.

I don't know if the freezer home remedy actually works as I've never done it personally. Just read a few times of other people doing it. And I think they've all been done to desktop drives instead of a laptop drive. So if you want to do this then it's your own responsibility. Nothing to do with me!

- Trevor

I've had two real bad harddrives, and a couple of occasions
where it looked like the drive was dead, but in fact the IDE
cable was loose, or the power supply was bad(!).

In the two real cases, I used IBM's Drive Fitness Test to
test the drives on a PC. Drive Fitness Test comes on a
bootable floppy, and will find most defects, and will either
repair them or log the defect details in a file.

You can then use this logfile to create an online RMA,
where your warranty validity will be checked through
the serial number in the logfile.

In both cases, I received a new drive in a couple of weeks
directly from the manufacturer.

You can download the Drive Fitness Test and create the
online RMA through http://www.storage.ibm.com/
You will be redirected to a Hitachi site, though.

Pim

THANKS!

I do have a laptop that I can put the HD in for tests. When I put the first "bad" HD in the laptop it would not see the HD. No doubt because it would not spin-up. Maybe this boot floppy can give this one a kickstart. This one won't spin up either.

I'd try a different brand of drive. I feel there is nothing wrong with using a hard drive in these conditions, laptop drives have pretty good specs for vibration and shock. I've put about 40k miles on my empegs in a 93 Cadillac Eldorado and 81k miles in a 00 Audi S4 with suspension mods, this includes drag strip, auto-x usage and countless hours of back road playtime. I've had no disk failure except for the early click of death failure of a 6GB drive in my MK1 about one week after I got in back in August 98, the replacement 6GB drive and the 12, 20 and 40GB drives I've had in the MK1 and Mk2 have been trouble free.

Unless anyone else has had a bad experience with them, try a fujitsu drive, they've been solid for me. Good luck!

If they're the drives that came with the empeg then they're OEM drives and you can't return them directly to IBM. You have to return it to the manufacturer of the equipment, in this case empeg.

- Trevor

Thanks for the help. Like I mentioned I'm a month out of Empeg warranty. Will they do this for me without costing more money than my 20 Gig is worth?

I certainly would not want to stop anyone from returning a defective
IBM drive to Empeg, but it's really worthwhile to check the validity
of IBM's end-user warranty.

I have returned many dead IBM drives directly to IBM (not al from
car players ...), and in fact all of them were marked as OEM drives.
Drives marked as PSG (usually inside IBM PC's) often have onsite
replacement warranty. This online RMA stuff is really just designed
for IBM OEM drives.

Anyway, just enter the product number and the serial number
of your dead drive on the online RMA webpage and IBM/Hitachi
will tell you whether your drive still has end-user warranty.

You can read the product number and the serial number off
the drive itself, but the Drive Fitness Test will display them too.
If the Drive Fitness Test is able to diagnose the problem (ie it
recognizes the drive and does not hang while testing), it will
creat a log file that contains all the technical data needed for
the RMA. You will not need to enter any error messages or
symptoms whatsoever.

Oh, and you don't really need a laptop to run the Drive Fitness
Test. You can buy a cheap adapter that will let you connect
a laptop drive to a regular IDE cable.

Best of luck,
Pim

THANKS MUCH!

Great help you guys!

I was hoping not to have to bother the Empeg guys if it is indeed bad (I sure think it is). It seems they are backlogged and this is something I can handle myself.

I am a computer geek but not a reseller. Glad I can go directly to IBM.

I have the Drive Fitness Test downloaded and will I will check it out to night!

Hopefully I’ll get it running soon!

FIXED IT!!!!!! .......well sort of.

I ran the Drive Fitness Test with the drive in my laptop and it would not see the drive (drive would not spin-up, bad drive, bad). The date on the drive says June 00, this must have been setting around a while since it was replaced by Empeg support last summer. It should have a three-year warranty so I might still be good. I will try to return it.

I then noticing I could peal up the sticker and get to the screws without messing up the sticker, so I figured what the heck. I removed all the screws and took the top off. The platter would NOT spin and would barley move with MUCH force. The heads were stuck halfway out on the platter (head crash) so I pushed them back to the side and they then moved freely. I tried not to get any fingerprints on the platter but did anyway. So I wiped it off with my shirt (definitely NOT a “Clean Room” environment). I put it back together. Hooked it to the Empeg and BAM, up it came. I then removed the drive and placed it into the laptop and ran the fitness test again. It would now see the drive but it does have issues. I will try to get a backup of the drive before I send it off or replace it.

Thanks for the help

I figured what the heck. I removed all the screws and took the top off.

Hmm, this may have voided a valid warranty. I would never have done this
unless I was sure the warranty had expired. If the Drive Fitness Test
does not recognize your drive, nothing is lost. It will display a "technical result
code" that you can enter in the online RMA webpage. You will have to enter
more technical details, but you'll still get a free replacement drive.

Opening a drive can for sure be detected and may instantly ruin a drive.
Remember, a smoke particle is bigger than the distance between the heads
and the platters.

The manufacturing date is not necessaraly the start of the warranty period.
You can alway try.

Pim

Wiped prints off with your shirt?? I think they may notice that you've opened it!

I took special care to notice if I would break any seals when opening the drive. One of the screws was hidden under a sticker that I was able to remove and replace without a problem.

When I ran the fitness test after my repair it found the drive and problems. I was able to use that and generated an RMA.

I was also able to get much of the data off the HD. It’s still bad but it at least spins-up now. I believe most of the damage occurred in the head crash. The platter was REALLY locked-up.

As far as I'm aware all drives we purchased were on an OEM basis. The manufacturer will know this from the drive serial number. If you did manage to get an RMA number then you should be aware of the sophistication of the diagnostics they run on their returns.

When we return a batch we often get a refusual for one or two of them, with a report along the lines:

"Stress analysis indicates 15.5G lateral shock indicative of 45cm drop to non-elastic surface with impact at front right edge; platter velocity zero at impact; parked at impact"

That's from memory, but you could the idea. I'd love to see if they can analyse the colour of the shirt you used to wipe the platter, and whether they can accurately determine your fabric softener

Rob

Wow, opening the drive and wiping off with your shirt and then you want to return it... I would save the postage for a new drive.

Remembering one time when I was in school, we went to se this laboratory where
they recover data from crashed harddrives. They shoved us the 'cleanrooms', the techs. working in there was not allowed to work there for more that 4 hours per. day as the environment was too clean for human body.
After that they shoed us a video where they had taken the cover off of a harddrive, they then put some sugar onto the platters, the sugar just bounced of as the head moved. Then they blew some smoke onto the platters, the platters was destroyed after a little while as the smoke particles was so small that they got between the heads and the platters.

TommyE

Got an Email from IBM/Hitachi that my replacement HD is on it's way, YES!

Got my data, a new HD and did not have to send my Empeg over the big lake. Looks like at least this is working out for me.

Since support is no more, after exploring all the possibilities for "No HD Found," getting an RMA from the HD manufacturer might be the way to go.

However I do agree with the naysayers. Opening the HD is risky busness. Just happen to have worked out for me.

I am warning my player - One more HD crash and it's gone!

Support is not ``no more''.

OK, 12 more days of support (thought it was the first, not the last of May) and then we go to "not determined" per this thread....

http://empeg.comms.net/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=ann&Number=156442&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=

I do know I sent an Email to support weeks ago and am still waiting for a response (one reason I went down this path). No response and an upcoming termination of current support spells "no more" for me.

Opening the HD is risky busness

In this case, not really.

You had a 20 GB drive that was worth very little even had it been in good working order. The value was in the contents of the drive, which there was no chance of retrieving unless you opened it up. On a risk/reward basis, the odds were overwhelmingly in your favor.

tanstaafl.