can i install more memory in an mk2a? and what benefits will i have?

also how do i check the harddrives for errors?

could be nice if hijack had this feature biult in... maybe also an option to control a cooling fan..

If I remember rightly Hijack already does have support for controlling a fan.

nice... maybe setings for high and low temps and the fan to be run a the lowest speed that meets these settings? like in most motherboards today you define a high and low and the MB just vary the speed of the fan so that the temp is within these temps

i think asus call it fanq or is it faneq

But if i install a fan and it should be controlled from hijack, is there an install guide? i found another guide (http://users.pandora.be/miata/english/empeg/empeg_fan_installation.htm) but this one is not to control from hijack

BTW.. by harddrive check i mean a check for bad sectors and so on

Somewhere here is a thread (or two) on adding a fan control circuit to the empeg, using a tiny add-on circuit board. Hijack has high/low thermostat parameters for controlling it, in the config.ini file.

It is time for you to practice some search fu. I usually don't have much luck with the built-in BBS search, though others here do obtain excellent results with it. But "google empegbbs xxxx" works much of time for me.


That's something which is not possible for end-users on most consumer devices. So with one hat on, I'll say forget about it.

But if you are technically competent, then note that the empeg does run Linux under the hood. And a nice thing about Linux, is that it's the same kernel with the same (minimum) features, regardless of machine type or size.

So.. whatever works for a Desktop PC or mainframe, will also work for an empeg.

The simplest way to check for bad sectors, is to just connect to the empeg over serial, hit control^C, and then do cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null.

Go away for a few hours while it runs, and watch the serial session for hard drive error messages.

Or move up a step from that, and use the Linux smartctl command to access the S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics of the drive(s). Again, search fu should turn up a binary for it elsewhere on this BBS.

Cheers

Yup, just tried it again now. At www.google.ca I used the keywords empegbbs fan controller and scored big-time.

Cheers

FWIW, Google has a feature where you can restrict your search to a particular site like this: "site:empegbbs.com fan controller".

And, again, keep in mind that if you want to search for multiple words with the BBS's search, you have to prefix them all with plusses, so "+fan +controller"

Question: Is your empeg actually overheating?

i think it is.. when cool i get no error's but here in the summer with the sun and all it get very wierd errors

if i then let the player cool of then no problems at all

that's why i want to check the drives for errors first

Bad soldering on the IDE header which is going weird when its hot?

no... the problem is that my unit is located right under the surface of the dash (black colour) so it gets very hot in the summer... to make things worse the heating ducts are located right under it

I goggled for an install of extra RAM, but i did not find any guide... can it at all be done on a mk2a?

Here's the link to the fan thread.

For the memory installation guide, please go to our website. A member of this BBS put it together with our assistance and asked for us to host it. Forgive me but his name escapes me at the moment, but it is a great resource. It explains in a good bit of detail how to install memory in an MK2A.

Hope this helps,
Stu

i got the link to the fan thing... only need the small board and a slim fan....

for the extra RAM i think the best option is a 64MB memory daughter board

and what could rock my world: a total dead unit for spare parts

I think that experiences here thus far, have shown that the stacked chips method for RAM upgrades seems to be the best bet. It is less intrusive/destructive, and a Mk2a upgrade to 32MB of RAM requires only two added chips and a single jumper wire.

The player software seems to run somewhat less optimally when more than 32MB of RAM is made available to it -- the read-ahead scheme was designed for much less than that, and it tends to block out the display/controls while buffering tunes into RAM.

Cheers

ok.. does any know where to get hold of the small board for the cooling fan?

I'd call it two wires really. This is how I did it:
http://empegbbs.com/files/215660-EmpegRAMUpgrade.jpg

who made the small board for controlling the cooling fan through hijack?

Did you actually read the threads returned from a search for "fan controller" ? All the information about who made the controller boards is there.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Aempegbbs.com%20fan%20controller&btnG=Search

doh.. i did but did not find an e-mail.. until now

benjammin's mail was at the footer on his page.. noe i feel like an idiot

>>The simplest way to check for bad sectors, is to just connect >>to the empeg over serial, hit control^C, and then do >>cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null.

>>Go away for a few hours while it runs, and watch the serial >>session for hard drive error messages.

i did it like this

1. open hyberterminal with correct setting
2. connect the player over serial
3. connect power and the player boots and start playing
4. power off the unit so that only the LED in the right corner flashes slow
5. hit control^C
6. the player boots and goes off
7. cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null
8. the player boots and starts playing... but no output to hyberterminal/serial

is this normal?

it was a good guide.... but where can i get the chips if located in the EU?

No. Either you have done something not quite correctly, or something weird happened.

The *only* way to know, is for *you* to (1) use something better than viperhemeroid (sorry, hyperterminal), eg. putty, and then post a full session log of your actions/results here.

Anything other than that, and I'm really not interested.

Cheers

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v481 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Fri Feb 1 21:20:17 EST 2008
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102286) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15000k/16M available (992k code, 20k reserved, 368k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9a38c
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
show_message("Hijack v481 by Mark Lord")
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004a80).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
hdb: ST9808211A, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST9808211A, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
hdb: ST9808211A, 76319MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:08:ee
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initTimezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul 5 2004
Vcb: 0x4086d000
Player received SIGINT, user interruption
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
no shell!
Shell exit
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul 5 2004
Vcb: 0x4086d000
cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null

The problem seems to be that you have a consumer version, not developer version, so you won't get a shell which is needed for the commands you were given. If you install the developer version, you should be able to run the commands.

Stig

should i go for v2.01-final or v3.00-alpha11 ?

That's a good question, which doesn't actually seem to be in the FAQ, at least not in that pithy a form. You need v3alpha11 if you want support for Vorbis or FLAC files, or for Unicode characters beyond Latin-1 (e.g. Greek or Cyrillic). And possibly for proper gapless MP3 playback too (it's a long time ago, I don't remember how well that worked in v2).

If you don't need any of those features, you might be better off with v2.01, as there have been reports of problems with v3alpha11. On the other hand, some people do use v3alpha11 every day without issues. (Really, alpha 10 should have been called "beta 1" and alpha 11 "beta 2".)

Peter

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg55 (peter@tatu) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #20 Tue Jul 6 15:36:06 BST 2004
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read 9afffff0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102286)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15024k/16M available (964k code, 20k reserved, 372k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 20706d65 'emp '
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004c00).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST9808211A, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
hdb: ST9808211A, 76319MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:08:ee
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul 5 2004
Vcb: 0x4086d000
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Abnormal player termination
Player received SIGINT, user interruption
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
empeg:/empeg/bin# /dev/hd* > /dev/null
bash: /dev/hda: Permission denied
empeg:/empeg/bin#

doh.. forgot the magic word cat

but should there be some output to the serial during the "diskcheck"?

You mean during the "cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null" ? There will only be output if there are errors.

thanks... but yes cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null

just have to be patient then

I use v3a11 regularly (but not every day -- my car rarely moves from its spot outside the house, and I'm not using my mlord dock at the moment), and it reboots occasionally. I can live with it.

For what it's worth, I don't use the tuner (I have one, but I only use it as a Ford Focus stalk adapter), and I listen to MP3 files only. I also don't bother with the visuals.

I've updated the relevant FAQ entry a bit.

i have found one error... but the check is not complete

but is there a way to exclude the bad sectors from beeing used?

I think that with modern IDE drives, the act of exercising that sector will automatically mark it as bad, you don't need to do anything. Mark, correct me if I'm wrong?

Huh? If it hits any error, it will bail out completely.
So what makes you think it "found one error" ?

Log, please.

I believe that you have to write to that sector to cause it to be re-mapped.

it has not returned to the command line yet.. but it was telling something about input/output error

empeg:/empeg/bin# cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=96695, sector=96695
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 96695
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=100349, sector=100349
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 100349
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=115173, sector=115173
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 115173
cat: /dev/hdc: Input/output error
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=65264558, sector=65055713
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 65055713
cat: /dev/hdc4: Input/output error
empeg:/empeg/bin#

i thought it could not hurt to format (build) the drives

i had to do it 2 times before it began the stress test, which i remeber means that the build went ok

during one of the builds ig got these errors on the secound drive:

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

real 4m0.304s
user 0m2.120s
sys 0m14.420s
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:44 (hdb), sector 119816194
EXT2-fs error (device ide0(3,68)): read_block_bitmap: Cannot read block bitmap - block_group = 7313, block_bitmap = 59908097
EXT2-fs error (device ide0(3,68)): ext2_check_blocks_bitmap: Wrong free blocks count in super block, stored = 77942805, counted = 77934623

btw... will both drives be stress tested?

just did the build 3 times in a row with no problems, just waiting for cat /dev/hd* > /dev/null to tell if the errors are still there.. will take a very looooooong time :-)

Ahh.. that explains why you think it "keeps on going".

Just for fun, try typing echo cat /dev/hd* and you'll see what command you really issued there.

For future advice-givers, the correct syntax is:
cat /dev/hd? > /dev/null
Which will finish in half the time with no errors, or less in the presence of errors.

But regardless, in this case there is something wrong.
So now use this command to repair the drive:

cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc

And then re-run the disk-builder stuff.

Cheers

big thanks...

btw.. you said that you could repair a broken handle?

do you ned a pic of it first ?

I can probably repair the broken handle, but won't know for sure until I try it.

A picture (here) might be fun.

well one pic will be here later

another question, was there ever made a guide for the auto eq thing? i guees that i have to use the mic input on the sled, and some spec. files....

but by guide i mean for dummies.. sometinh like this:

1. do this
2. then do this
...

This is about as good as it got. Worked for me, although personally I tweaked a little to my like first.
http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=1&Number=231894

There's also this manual way:
http://empegwiki.org/index.php?title=Empeg_Sound_-_parametetric_eq

good guide.... but where do i get the auto-eq files? and what order do i have to set them?

i may be blind but did not sse that

I think the files are these ones:

http://persiconi.com/wrx/downloads/empegsound/soundfiles/parametric/

thanks for the files


how long should cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc take for a 80 gb drive?

Most likely on the order of 80 * 1000 * seconds, or from 10-22 hours.

-ml

after some 11-12 hours i got this:

empeg:/empeg/bin# cat /dev/hd? > /dev/null
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40
show_message("36e0.-1 hdb: err: read_intr")
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 115464112
cat: /dev/hdc: Input/output error
empeg:/empeg/bin#

keep in mind that i did the repair as mark told me to do...

Mmm.. "read_intr: status=0x59 error=0x40" really means "bad sector". That shouldn't happen here if you successfully did the cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc command beforehand.

So repeat both steps again. If it still fails, something else (connectors) may be bad.

Or get the smartctl binary for the empeg and run it -- it will read out the error logs from the drive to tell us what *really* happened.

Cheers

while i do another cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc

i wondered.. the auto.eq thing.. is that only in ver 3?

Yes

i guees that doing cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc

it's normal to get no space left on drive error

By doing this you will remove everything. You are zeroing every single sector on the drive. So all data will be gone. It will also erase any partitions set up previously.

i know...

is there a way to do it for both drives? some of the partions ar mounted read only

To do it for both drives, just use /dev/hda and /dev/hdc for the second parameter.

It doesn't care that the partitions are mounted read-only, because it writes over the entire drive, including the partition table.

What it does is cause the disk to remap the bad sectors (the drive will only remap when writing).

Running out of space is expected: /dev/zero is an infinite-length stream of zeroes, and your disk has finite space.

(slightly drunk; being unnecessarily concise)

thanks roger

and it's ok to be drunk :-)

so i should do it for :

/dev/hda
/dev/hdb
/dev/hdc

?

If you want to do both drives then hda + hdc. No hdb.

why not hdb? i have seen hdb among the errors

The Mk1 had two IDE channels so your two drives ended up as hda and hdc.

The Mk2/Mk2A had 1 IDE channel so your two drives ended up as hda and hdb. However to make it easier, the device nodes in /dev were changed around slightly so you could still refer to the 2nd drive as /dev/hdc.

Yeah. Blame me (and Linus) for the skip naming, and blame Hugo for his twisted simplification (of empeg s/w) in taking advantage of it.

The kernel refers to the second drive in a MkII/MkIIa as hdb, but the non-kernel software uses /dev/hdc for the same unit. This is a peculiar, yet normal, sort of thing for a POSIX style operating system to be able to do.

EDIT: The purists would prefer that we should have used 3,0 and 3,16 in the kernel, instead of hda and hdb. But I argued against that, as being rather unfriendly for common uses and users.

Cheers

funny thing is that when i zero fill hda at some point it goes crazy and are writing stuff so fast that i cant read it.

if i reboot the player it hits me with a kernel panic

doing the disk build stuff and everything is normal again, but it is only stress testing hda....

anyway cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdb can't be done, it tells me that /dev/hdb is read only

a little challange for mark: build a disk test thing in to hijack, with options to test and repair disk, and also stress all installed drives

maybe as a special version that only do that.. or maybe a "bug fix" hijack that can be used for fixing bugs and repairs ?

As I said above, don't do hdb.

There is a finite number of spare blocks available on the drive to remap bad blocks. If your drive is really badly broken then you'll have to replace it.

but there are errors on hdb... guess i can take them out of the player and zero fill them on my laptop

Errors on hdb get fixed when you "cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc". If you open the player, count the drives carefully! there will be at most two, not three

I think, Mark, your clarification itself contained a typo: didn't you mean:

..?

Peter

there are 2 drives, i installed the second one myself,

also i used some clear silicon glue on the ide connector on the drives, this becuase the silicon stays flexible and is easy to remove.. i used the clear type as it is the most weak of all types.. you can get greay, white and red types...

i prefered silicon to hot melt glue do to that vibrations could break of the hot melt glue as i cools down and get hard

Hi,

Sometimes that type of silicone RTV will leech into the connector mating area and contaminte the gas-tight seal of the pin and socket.

Make sure this is not the problem too.

Ross

i'm sure it's not the problem, i only applied so little that it would only touch the surface of the connector on the drive and on the ide cable

Silicone uses an acid solvent, which can corrode contacts.

Yup. Typo now fixed by an EDIT in the original post.

Thanks.

I'd have preferred Solaris-style c0t0 and c0t1 namings. It's so easy to figure out what's what under Solaris in a way that it is not under most other Unices, Linux included.

so it's 100% safe as long óne does not put it on the contact pins

Vapours.

i did some heavy vent. wkile i dried up

anyway after some diskbuilds and zero fills it all comes down to this:


empeg:/empeg/bin# cat /dev/hda > /dev/null
empeg:/empeg/bin# cat /dev/hdc > /dev/null
hdb: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hdb: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=115459753, sector=115459753
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:40 (hdb), sector 115459753
cat: /dev/hdc: Input/output error
empeg:/empeg/bin#

i will be fixing the temp sensor later, so the unit will get a very close inspection while i have it open

as for the Silicone i have only used it on the drive end of the IDE cable... i could never dream of using the stuff on the mainboard.. there is no need to either as the connector is more a theight fit than on the drives

just loaded ver. 3 alpha 11.. i feel like an idiot, i can't find the auto eq feature

do i have to plug in the mic to have the menu option displayed?

The smartctl program is the only real way to know if the drive is the issue.

I've placed a binary copy (for the empeg) on the Hijack site (links at top of this page and that page.

Cheers

how do i use the tool? sorry for asking stupid

Use it the same as you would on any other Linux system.
The man page is here, courtesy of Google.
The normal sequence is to do something like this:

## Enable the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring in the drive firmware:
smartctl -s on /dev/hdc

## Check current drive status. "-a" means "all", or "everything":
smartctl -a /dev/hdc

Then scour the output looking for error reports.
(and post the complete output here for us to help with)

If you don't see any errors, then do the "cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc"
thing again (sorry), and this time the drive will record errors
for later retrieval with smartctl -a

Cheers

i'm a windows man so i don't know much about linux, can you make a very quick step by step?

The FAQ has a step-by-step here, but I haven't sanity-checked it in a long time, so it might be outdated. Worth a try though.

i will say it does work or not

damn.. i cant connect to ftp... :-(
newest hijack installed

still no go at the http or ftp in hijack

i installed ver 2.01 kernel and newest hijack

Check the ethernet connections. Go to the "about" screen on the empeg front-panel, and see what IP address it is using.

You know the drill by now.. post a serial log here along with the IP address info.

serial log at power up (ip: 192.168.1.102) :


empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

e000 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v488 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Fri Feb 15 10:29:26 EST 2008
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102286) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15000k/16M available (992k code, 20k reserved, 368k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9a38c
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
show_message("Hijack v488 by Mark Lord")
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004680).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
hdb: ST9808211A, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST9808211A, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
hdb: ST9808211A, 76319MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:08:ee
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: unknown partition table
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music parattempt to access beyond end of device
tition
03:44: rw=0, want=2, limit=0
dev 03:44 blksize=1024 blocknr=1 sector=2 size=1024 count=1
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 22
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To ComðStarting player
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul 5 2004
Vcb: 0x4086d000

Mmm.. is this a completely "blank" player (no tunes or playlists installed yet) ?

I think the Hijack servers do not start up unless a config.ini file exists on the player. That's something I ought to fix someday, but it is easier to just create the config.ini file.

Connect using ckermit or putty or even hyperterm over the serial cable, hit control^C, and type these commands at the prompt:

rwm
echo "[hijack]" >> /empeg/var/config.ini
rom
exit

Then cycle the power and try again.

Cheers

it's complete blank

log from diskbuild:


warning: can't open /etc/mtab: No such file or directory
Setting up swapspace version 0, size = 17027072 bytes
Warning: insecure permissions 0644, 0600 suggested
Adding Swap: 16628k swap-space (priority -1)
Making first drive...
mke2fs 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
ext2fs_check_if_mount: No such file or directory while determining whether /dev/ hda4 is mounted.
Linux ext2 filesystem format
Filesystem label=
152000 inodes, 19451880 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
2375 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
64 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185, 401409, 663553,
1024001, 1990657, 2809857, 5120001, 5971969, 17915905,

Writdone
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

real 1m19.953s
user 0m0.450s
sys 0m5.430s
Partitioning second drive...
Partitioning /dev/hdb
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
Initialising /dev/hdb complete
Making second drive...
mke2fs 1.14, 9-Jan-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
ext2fs_check_if_mount: No such file or directory while determining whether /dev/hdb4 is mounted.
Linux ext2 filesystem format
Filesystem label=
609728 inodes, 78043770 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
9527 block groups
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
64 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185, 401409, 663553,
1024001, 1990657, 2809857, 5120001, 5971969, 17915905, 19668993,
25600001, 53747713,

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

real 4m2.952s
user 0m1.890s
sys 0m14.420s
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Speed checking /dev/hda3
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Read/write of 8Mb took 6.64 seconds
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 54): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Drive length is 39070080 blocks, seek testing

The serial output seems to indicate it's doing the stress test, meaning the player software hasn't been installed. It looks like all it has in place is the builder, not the player. I think you need the player softare and hijack in place before FTP will work. Someone correct me if I'm wrong?

as i wrote the log is from the diskbuild process

Okay. Why?

I thought maybe we were still working on the bad sectors (?).

Cheers

weare.. i just wrote the log so you could see whee i was in the progress...

for now i have done:

1. diskbuild
2. install ver 2.01 devel
3. installed newest hijack
4. run the commands:

rwm
echo "[hijack]" >> /empeg/var/config.ini

but it says that the command row can not be found... but there is the commands ro and rom (pressing the tab key)...

edit: none of those 2 did work

He meant "rom".

Yes. Thanks Bitt. Now fixed in original posting.

the commands did the work.. did not even had to cycle power

Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Abnormal player termination
Player received SIGINT, user interruption
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
empeg:/empeg/bin# rwm
empeg:/empeg/bin#
empeg:/empeg/bin# echo "[hijack]" >> /empeg/var/config.ini
empeg:/empeg/bin# rom
empeg:/empeg/bin# exit
logout
Shell exit
Starting player
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 587:empeg-car 3.00-alpha11 2005/07/25.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1485 Jul 25 2005
Vcb: 0x4073a000

i did get the .bin file to player by reading the faq..

right now i'm doing the test as the faq says... but no errors for hda so far...

is it usefull if i put together a guide?

got errors on /dev/hdc:

Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v488 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Fri Feb 15 10:29:26 EST 2008
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102286) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15000k/16M available (992k code, 20k reserved, 368k data, 4k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
Signature is 20706d65 'emp '
Found custom animation at offset 0x9a38c
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
show_message("Hijack v488 by Mark Lord")
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005400).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x0080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x0000
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xaaaa
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x5555
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ST9808211A, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
hdb: ST9808211A, 76319MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:08:ee
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 587:empeg-car 3.00-alpha11 2005/07/25.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1485 Jul 25 2005
Vcb: 0x4073a000
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Abnormal player termination
Player received SIGINT, user interruption
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
empeg:/empeg/bin# cd /tmp
empeg:/tmp# ./smartctl.bin -l error /dev/hdc
smartctl version 5.33 [arm-empeg-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Error Log Version: 1
Warning: ATA error count 0 inconsistent with error log pointer 4

ATA Error Count: 0
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Error 0 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 3887 hours (161 days + 23 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was in a vendor specific state.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
51 01 01 00 00 43 a1 Error: UNC, IDNF, AMNF at LBA = 0x01430000 = 21168128

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
40 20 fe f9 6f 00 00 f6 12d+10:16:25.350 READ VERIFY SECTOR(S)
00 20 fd f9 6f 00 00 f6 00:00:43.016 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 20 fb f9 6f 00 00 f6 00:00:40.968 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 20 f9 f9 6f 00 00 f6 00:00:38.920 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 20 f7 f9 6f 00 00 f6 00:00:36.872 NOP [Reserved subcommand]

Error -1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 34824 hours (1451 days + 0 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was in an unknown state.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
19 43 f7 51 01 00 00 Error:

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
00 19 f7 20 0a 76 0d 2f 00:14:28.352 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 18 f7 20 ce 74 0d ef 00:14:11.968 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 18 f7 20 97 74 0d af 00:14:11.968 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 18 f7 20 8e 74 0d 6f 00:14:11.968 NOP [Reserved subcommand]
00 18 f7 20 31 98 0d 2f 00:14:11.968 NOP [Reserved subcommand]

Error -2 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was in a vendor specific state.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
d0 00 6f 16 f7 51 01

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
76 cf 6f 16 f7 20 0a 02 22d+22:06:06.861 SEEK [RET-4]
74 cf 2f 16 f7 20 ce 02 22d+16:20:57.485 SEEK [RET-4]
74 cf ef 15 f7 20 97 02 22d+15:20:53.005 SEEK [RET-4]
74 cf af 15 f7 20 8e 02 22d+15:11:03.181 SEEK [RET-4]
74 cf 6f 15 f7 20 87 02 22d+15:03:24.429 SEEK [RET-4]

Error -3 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 3721 hours (155 days + 1 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
40 51 00 d0 ef 12 f7 Error: UNC at LBA = 0x0712efd0 = 118681552

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
20 00 02 cf ef 12 f7 00 6d+09:37:51.899 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 02 cf af 12 f7 00 6d+09:37:51.888 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 02 cf 6f 12 f7 00 6d+09:37:51.883 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 02 cf 2f 12 f7 00 6d+09:37:51.879 READ SECTOR(S)
20 00 02 cf ef 11 f7 00 6d+09:37:51.873 READ SECTOR(S)

Error -4 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was in an unknown state.

After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
00 00 00 43 a1 01 00

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---------------- --------------------
d0 00 0d 00 00 40 00 8a 40d+09:21:05.071 [RESERVED]
cf 00 0d 00 00 00 02 81 40d+04:43:38.927 [RESERVED]
cf 00 0d 00 00 00 02 76 40d+04:43:38.863 [RESERVED]
cf 00 0d 00 00 00 02 6f 40d+04:43:38.799 [RESERVED]
cf ff 0c 00 00

sorry but empeg:/tmp# ./smartctl.bin -l error /dev/hdc freezed so thats why the sudden stop

Okay, so smartctl tells us that the drive definitely has media errors -- and so there is no need to blame the cables/connectors (yet).

If you have the patience to continue writing zeros until all of the errors are repaired, then go for it. But at this point I would pull the drive and send it in for a warranty replacement.

Or at least install it in a PC and run a Seagate low-level format on it. That is, assuming that Seagate provides software (web site?) to do this, like other manufacturers.

Cheers

Google seems to have found it for me.

Or, on a more modern Linux system (than the empeg),
one could use: hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/sdc

Cheers

i have the time, but can i do the "zero fill" thing in the empeg?

the problem is that the disk is an OEM from seagate and i can't remember how i got it

and i would be happy if i could avoid opening my laptop to repair the drive

btw... can i configure network on the player through putty?

for some reason my old laptop cant find the player through emplode but it can with putty (the drives spins up when opening emplode but it will go on searching for the player forever - if setting it to search my network it finds it in a flash)

i just want to assign the player a fixed ip

If you don't have anything that you care about in the config.ini file, then just connect over serial again, and do this:

## Hit control^C to get a shell prompt, then do:

## Enable read/write access to all disks:
rwm

## Replace config.ini with new contents,
## (edit the IP addresses below to suit your network):
cat << EOF > /empeg/var/config.ini
[Network]
Gateway=192.168.0.1
Netmask=255.255.255.0
IPAddress=192.168.0.9
EOF

## Switch back to read-only disk access again:
rom

## Restart the player s/w:
exit

Sure, just keep attempting the 11-hour operation until it succeeds completely:

cat /dev/zero > /dev/hdc

But on a PC, a reformat/erase operation would take only a single attempt, and complete in less than an hour.

Cheers

Mmm.. perhaps I really should update the empeg's IDE (disk) drivers to support modern hdparm features. Then we could simply let hdparm fix the bad sectors, or do the erase operation, etc..

Not for one person, though, but the need for this sort of thing does seem to be growing in general.

Someday perhaps..

Okay, I'm actually having a go at this now, hopefully for Hijack v490.

Awesome. Thanks for all the work you've put in on this, Mark.

Okay, it is done.

wow... have to have a look at it

sorry for the late answer..

i have done a very careful inspect of the whole mainboard... no bad solders or loose conectors